Indonesia’s plan to retire 6.7 gigawatts of coal-fired power plant capacity by 2030 to fight climate change is at risk of failure due to stalled disbursal of funding from rich countries, the country’s top official overseeing the program told Reuters.
According to Reuters, the country’s top official overseeing the program said that a coalition of 10 donor nations called the Just Energy Transition Partnership promised in 2022 to raise $20 billion within three to five years for Indonesia, once described as the “single-largest climate finance transaction.” Funds to retire plants representing 13.5 per cent of the country’s coal-fired power capacity were to be included in the sum.
“We have not seen any commitment from anyone to finance the coal phase-out,” Paul Butarbutar, head of the JETP Indonesia Secretariat, said on the sidelines of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil.
The problem in Indonesia, the world’s seventh-largest coal-fired power producer and Southeast Asia’s largest economy, underscores broader concerns among developing nations about international climate finance, which has been slow to materialise.
Indonesia’s JETP has approved $2.85 billion in loans and equity, and $186.9 million in grants for grids, renewables, efficiency, and electric-powered transport, but no coal power plant retirement funds have been approved, according to a draft progress report by the initiative published last month.
The 10 donor nations included the United States, the European Union, Japan and others. The United States has since withdrawn.
Japan, which is now coordinating the JETP program for Indonesia with Germany, did not respond to requests seeking comment.
