Humanizing Energy Transition: Broadening the Perspective of Energy Justice in Realizing an Energy-Just Indonesia
Transitioning to cleaner energy has become a major focus of Indonesia’s climate policy. From its high dependency on fossil fuels, Indonesia plans to achieve at least 23% new and renewable energy (RE) in the total primary energy mix by 2025 and 31% by 2050. The plan requires Indonesia to take more ambitious measures in order to accelerate its RE development.
While RE transition is undoubtedly crucial in mitigating climate change, it is important to acknowledge its adverse impacts that may affect local communities who live around the RE activities, particularly resource mining and power plant construction and operation. To address this, the question of justice must be called into the energy policy discussions.
However, the current Indonesian climate and energy policy-making only emphasizes the topic of energy justice in the scope of energy accessibility, affordability, and employment issue for workers affected by the structural change in the economy. Climate documents, such as the Indonesia Long-Term Strategy for Low Carbon and Climate Resilience 2050 and the newly-submitted Enhanced Nationally Determined Contribution of Republic of Indonesia, recognize the needs of existing vulnerable groups, but fail to mention how climate change mitigation efforts, especially renewable energy transition, may create new vulnerable groups by dispossessing and impoverishing local communities. This essay aims to analyze how the supply chain of RE activities in Indonesia, namely nickel mining as well as building and operating large-scale renewable power plants, can cause injustices to local communities in Indonesia and how they should be addressed through policies beyond the energy sector to further accelerate just energy transition.
Nickel is an important mineral used in many renewable technologies, notably battery storage systems and electric vehicles. According to International Energy Agency, the largest amount of nickel produced in the world comes from Indonesia, notably the Sulawesi and Maluku regions. However, the nickel mining activities in those regions have adverse impacts to the local communities and indigenous people, including causing loss of livelihood spaces and earnings due to deforestation, destruction of coastal ecosystems, and dispossession of farmlands, threatening local biodiversity, and decreasing the river water availability and quality used by the locals, consequently affecting their health. Moreover, a land conflict regarding nickel mining activity in Wawonii has been accompanied by threat, intimidation, and violence experienced by the people who protest the activity. Three protesters were even arrested by the police after a report made by the mining company. These socio-economic implications have become growing concerns as the Indonesian government is currently pushing the development of “a large-scale electric vehicle ecosystem”.
Large-scale renewable power plant projects, namely hydropower and geothermal, have suffered similar problems to nickel mining. With a large plot of land needed, several plans to construct hydropower plants threaten to displace communities, including indigenous people, in Bulungan Regency, North Kalimantan and Batang Toru, North Sumatera, and destroy local heritage sites in Mamuju Regency, West Sulawesi. Operation of a hydropower plant in Poso Regency, Central Sulawesi has caused loss of earnings for local farmers due to flooding of their farmlands.
Moreover, protest against the construction of a hydropower plant in Seko, South Sulawesi was met with violence and arrests by police. Several hydro power plant projects have also been criticized for lack of transparency due to the companies’ unwillingness to publicly share their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and/or absence of public participation in discussing the development plans.
Drawing on experiences from locals living around geothermal power plants in North Tapanuli Regency, North Sumatera as well as Ngada and West Flores Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, the discharge of harmful sludge and gases from the plants have been linked to crop failures, property damage, and adverse effects on the population’s health. Furthermore, plans to build more geothermal plants in Dieng, Central Java and Flores, East Nusa Tenggara have been opposed by the local communities due to its potential to cause water crisis and destruction of their living space.
Using an analytical tool developed by Jenkins et al. in 2016, there are at least three types of injustices that can be caused by RE activities to local communities in Indonesia based on the previous cases. First, RE activities can disproportionately burden the local communities with its high environmental, economic, and social costs – a matter of distributional justice. Second, RE projects can deliberately or unintentionally exclude public participation from the planning phase – an issue of procedural justice. Third, the developer of RE projects can choose to ignore the needs of communities, particularly indigenous people, and use threat, intimidation, and/or legal action to curb protest and limit the enjoyment of civil and political rights – a question of recognition justice. Potential violations of several human rights guaranteed by the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia are identified, including the right to life, work, freedom of expression, information, protection against threat, live prosperously, housing, and a good and healthy living environment.
The Indonesian government bears the duty to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights as well as manage the national energy system in accordance with justice principle. Hence, the Indonesian government must humanize the current energy transition by resolving past injustices and preventing future injustices. This effort relies not only on the energy policy, but also different, yet interrelated policies beyond the energy sector.
Environmental, social, and economic costs should be minimized with meaningful public participation in an effective EIA regime, developing more decentralized and community-based RE projects instead of large-scale ones which need a lot of space, strengthening mining licensing regulations, enabling a circular economy scheme for renewable technologies to limit the demand of minerals, following due process of land procurement and giving adequate compensation to the displaced, providing jobs and social assistance to the people whose earnings are negatively affected, improving protection of critical ecosystems, and effective monitoring on air and water pollution control. Civil and political rights of the local communities can be better protected by establishing comprehensive provisions on Anti-Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (anti-SLAPP) and implementing human rights-based policing.
However, current development in Indonesia shows that the aforementioned steps to realize a thoroughly just energy transition are faced with significant challenges. For example, the controversial Law Number 11 Year 2020 on Job Creation has reduced the opportunity of public participation in EIA process, weakened the spatial planning instruments meant to prevent environmental pollution and damage, and loosened the mining licensing system. Moreover, anti-SLAPP regulation remains weak, police officers continue to use repressive means in resolving conflicts, and criminal provisions are still actively used on environmental defenders. Thus, realizing a just energy transition means solving the structural problems on how Indonesia generally fails to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights as well as protect its environment and natural resources.
From the discussion above, there are two recommendations that should be seriously considered by relevant stakeholders, particularly the Indonesian government. First, the just transition policy-making in Indonesia should be broadened to recognize and include the potential injustices in the entire supply chain, starting from resource extraction. Second, addressing the question of justice for the whole energy system requires a multisectoral approach in strengthening environmental and human rights policies, and ensuring their effective implementation. This essay concludes with a hope that in 2050, Indonesia will not only be successful in achieving its energy and climate target, but also become a truly energy-just country which leaves no one behind.
