Energy · Climate · Indonesia
I study how Indonesia and its neighbours can get off coal, and what that switch costs the people living through it.
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MediumIndonesia produced an estimated 1.8 million metric tons of nickel in 2023, much of it for the electric vehicle industry. The environmental and social costs are serious, and I saw some of them first-hand in Morowali.
Read the essay →MediumIndonesia has 283 million people and about 68% of them are in their prime working years (ages 15-64), so the country should be seeing strong growth. Instead it is squandering what economists call a "demographic dividend".
MediumIndonesia's carbon tax is set at IDR 30 per kilogram of CO₂e. With coal making up 67.2% of the country's electricity production, the tax could fall hardest on middle and lower-income households, raising energy costs and widening income inequality.
MediumTransport is one of the biggest energy users in ASEAN and runs almost entirely on oil, much of it imported. The ASEAN Renewable Energy Long-Term Roadmap aims for renewables to cover 67% of final energy consumption by 2050, up from 15% in 2021.
MediumEnergy use in Southeast Asia is expected to rise 60% between 2019 and 2040, and the region still relies mostly on imported fossil fuels. ASEAN's 2025 target is 23% renewables in primary energy supply, up from 14.4% in 2019, and 35% in power generation.
