Indonesia Case Studies: LANDMARC and TIPPING+

Indonesia is the largest archipelagic country comprising around 17,508 islands with many remote areas, inhabiting over 265 million people. Indonesia is one of the world’s biggest emitters, with emissions from land-use contribute significantly (65.5%) to the nation’s total GHG emissions (USAID, 2017). To address emerging impacts of climate change, Indonesia has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) by 29% by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement. However, this international climate mitigation policy and strategies often do not consider the nuanced needs and real conditions as well as opportunities present at the regional level, resulting in misalignments between (inter) national climate policy goals and local priorities.

For the energy sector, the primary energy sources are still dominated by fossil fuels (e.g. coal, oil, and gas), with renewable energy only making up 17.1% for all electricity production (DEN, 2019). Although Indonesia had achieved 98.83% electrification rate in 2019 (PWC, 2019), the distribution is unbalanced as electrification rates in Eastern Indonesia is lower compared to Western Indonesia. For example, Jakarta’s rate reaches almost 100%, while Nusa Tenggara Timur and Papua (the eastern islands) only have rates of around 72% and 94% respectively. Besides that, these rural households still highly depend on traditional biomass (firewood) for cooking (OECD, 2019) that leads to deforestation and indoor air pollution. At the same time, these areas are occupied with around 23.5 M ha of agricultural land that produces 345,700 tons livestock manure daily, while Bali alone has 81,744 ha of agricultural land and 13,148 tons/day of livestock manure (BPS, 2020). With that, an alternative energy that can utilize the resources of rural Indonesia is desirable to support rural livelihoods while reducing the country’s excessive reliance on fossil fuels. Based on the massive potential of livestock manure, biogas becomes the most realistic all-inclusive solution that can supply clean energy and help the Indonesia achieve their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

To mitigate the emission and climate impact in land-use and electricity sector, the potential and options of decarbonisation, clean cooking, and coal removal can be explored through specific case studies in Indonesia. Indonesia case studies in LANDMARC and TIPPING+ project will focus on the scientific assessment of decarbonisation processes through biogas and compost, and policy engagement to enable clean-energy transition in coal- and carbon-intensive regions like Indonesia. This project is led by su-re.co, an environmental think-tank based in Bali, Indonesia. To address the problem of land-use based mitigation impact and enabling clean-energy transition in Indonesia, su-re.co will promote biogas and composts in Bali and policy engagement in coal removal in electricity system in Banten. Biogas is considered as a realistic option for Indonesia case to address the issues of lacking clean energy for cooking in addition to providing organic fertiliser or bio-slurry for agricultural activity as the main sector in this country. LANDMARC project also aims to provide modelling and simulation of earth observation, climate risk assessment, and economic impacts of land-use based mitigation technology (LMT) at the case study level, while for TIPPING+, the project aims to conduct stakeholder engagement and policy dialogues.