Indonesia has expressed its upset with developed countries’ hollow commitments to funding the country’s energy transition. In every bilateral meeting with leaders of the Group of Seven countries in Tokyo last weekend, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo demand each of them realize their US$20 billion funding commitment through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) to finance Indonesia’s energy transition to achieve early electricity net-zero emission target by 2050.

President Jokowi raised the issue of realizing the JETP funding commitment during his bilateral meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. During his meeting with Trudeau, Jokowi even mentioned that Indonesia wanted the funding to be realized more through direct investment and grants, and not in the forms of debt.

Speaking at a session on climate, energy and environment at the G7 Outreach Summit in Hiroshima at the weekend, Jokowi repeated his call on the group of rich countries to put their money where their mouth is. Developing countries, he said, are becoming doubtful over the funding commitments by developed nations.

 “The old approach of burden shifting [and] propaganda must be left behind. The world needs real action, not just talking the talk that brings no concrete results,” he said. ¹ 

 Earlier this month, Coordinating Maritime Affairs and Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan expressed his disappointment with the US over noncommitment over JETP funding. He said he travelled to Washington to present Indonesia’s plans for the energy transition under the JETP the before US climate envoy John Kerry and his team, and the US officials agreed with the proposal, but could not make any commitment of funding yet.

 “I said, ‘where is the money?’ Ayo ayo [come on, this is] just empty talk,” Luhut said, adding that Indonesia wanted concessionary loans, not commercial ones, to fund its energy transition. “If you give us commercial loans, forget it. We can do it on our own.”² 

 The US and Japan, as chair and cochair of JETP Indonesia, preside over a series of grants, loans and investments pooled from public and private lenders to help speed up the country’s transition from fossil fuel to renewables. The Indonesian Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry announced recently a public fund commitment increased to $11.7 billion and a private fund commitment at $10 billion –therefore with the total fund commitment so far totaling $21.7 billion.

 To expedite the funding realization, the Indonesian government has established a JETP secretariat under the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry. The secretariat is currently developing a Comprehensive Investment Plan (CIP), consisting of energy transition projects on offer to donor countries. The projects will cover five key areas: development of transmission networks, early retirement of coal-fired power plants, expansion of baseload and variable renewable energy projects and strengthening renewable energy supply chain. The CIP should be completed by Aug. 16.³