ndonesia’s Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Regulation No.10/2025, which lays out a road map for the energy transition of the electricity system, should have been a milestone moment: a blueprint to drive the country once and for all from coal into a renewables-based future.
On paper, it commits to cutting emissions, closing coal-fired power plants early and constructing transmission supergrids to transmit new clean power to expanding cities.
But reading between the lines, it becomes clear that this road map is not a reflection of a democratic plan but of a technical report governed by grand schemes, existing utilities and commercial agendas.
Perhaps most obviously, it does not have at its center the very people who sit next to coal-fired power plants and mines, workers whose economic interests are bound up with fossil fuel corporations and communities around Indonesia who stand to win or loseย the most.
This missing social justice lens is not merely a moral failure,ย it threatens to seize a historic moment of decision and turn it into yet another top-down, centralized policy making the same old familiar mistakes.
The policy is clothed in “just energy transition.” But in reality, it is based on justice as a tickbox rather than a principle shaping every step of decision-making.
Communities near coal power plants and mines are still among Indonesia’s most impacted by pollution and land conflict. But there is no requirement in the roadmap for consultation of these communities prior to decision-making on early plant closure or new transmission corridors.
