Indonesia Faces Calls for Stronger Climate Action Ahead of COP31
Environmentalists are pressing Indonesia to strengthen its climate commitments before UN talks begin on Nov. 9, as fires and drought fuel public discontent and Climate Action Tracker rates the country's response as "Critically Insufficient."
Climate pledge draws criticism
Indonesia has submitted its second Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) document under the 2015 Paris Agreement, setting out a path for gradually reducing greenhouse gas emissions through 2060. But critics say the government continues to favor fossil fuels over renewable energy in pursuit of economic growth.
Environmentalists are also challenging its reluctance to stop projects involving land and forest conversion, which can add to greenhouse gas emissions. They are calling for stronger efforts to limit the climate crisis's impacts while warning against false solutions.
Climate Action Tracker (CAT) finds that Indonesia is moving further from an emissions pathway compatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Using the median of the country's 2035 NDC targets, CAT puts the gap between Indonesia's emissions and that pathway at 112% in 2030, widening to 141% in 2035.
The power sector illustrates the distance from CAT's Paris-aligned benchmarks. Renewable sources supplied about 18% of Indonesia's electricity in 2024, mostly through hydropower and bioenergy; wind and solar together contributed less than 1%. CAT says renewables need to provide at least 57% of electricity by 2030, and ideally as much as 69%.
CAT also points to the government's late-2025 decision to abandon the early retirement of the PLTU Cirebon-1 coal plant. Officials cited possible financial penalties and the cost of replacement power. According to CAT, authorities signaled a retreat from a coal "phase-out" toward a more limited "phase-down."
Fires and drought intensify scrutiny
Indonesia's climate debate comes amid ecological disasters that have stirred public discontent and regional distress. Forest monitoring platform Nusantara Atlas recorded at least 1.9 million hectares of burned land during the first nine months of 2026, as a prolonged drought driven by El Niño affected the country.
Despite criticism, the government has declined to designate the forest and peatland fires a national disaster, saying its containment measures are sufficient, The Jakarta Post reported.
The response has involved 71,000 personnel drawn from the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), the Indonesian Military, the National Police and local volunteers. Operations have combined firefighting on the ground with water bombing and weather modification. The government also allocated Rp 1.24 trillion (US$68.5 million) for firefighting equipment, masks and health services for people affected by haze.
Agriculture has suffered as well. Authorities in South Sulawesi reported that drought associated with the El Niño-driven prolonged dry season had affected 75,000 hectares of rice fields across the province.
The global emissions challenge
The UN Environment Programme's Emissions Gap Report 2026: The Point of Return, released Oct. 21, warned that warming will inevitably exceed the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C target in the next few years. It urged countries to keep that overshoot as limited as possible.
The report's "lowest possible" overshoot scenario would hold peak warming around mid-century to 1.7-1.8°C, with about a 50% chance of bringing temperatures back to or below 1.5°C by 2100. That pathway requires global greenhouse gas emissions to fall from 2025 levels by 18% in 2030, 45% in 2035 and 69% in 2040.
By contrast, UNEP projects warming of 2.8°C this century under current policies. Full delivery of all countries' NDCs would bring the projection to 2.6°C.
COP31 opens Nov. 9
Those commitments will frame negotiations at the 31st UN Climate Change Conference, or COP31, in Antalya, Turkey. Co-hosted by Turkey and Australia, the two-week gathering will bring together world leaders, businesses and civil society representatives to negotiate faster implementation of the Paris Agreement.
The COP31 Presidency has organized the program into 12 thematic days, each devoted to a priority area. Food, Agriculture and Health opens the schedule on Nov. 9, followed by Energy and Transport on Nov. 10.
The highest-level segment, the World Leaders Climate Action Summit, is scheduled for Nov. 11-12. It will run alongside the Zero Waste and Resilient Cities and Built Environment themes.