(Bloomberg) -- Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said the government plans to retire all the nation’s coal power plants within 15 years to help stem global warming.
The country will also retire all other fossil fuel plants and add more than 75 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity over the same time frame, Prabowo said during the G-20 Summit in Brazil, according to a video statement on Wednesday. He also said Indonesia was optimistic it could achieve net zero emissions before 2050, a decade earlier than its existing target.
Achieving such targets will be difficult in a nation where coal and natural gas account for nearly 80% of electricity, and which had installed less than 1 gigawatt of combined wind and solar capacity as of last year, according to BloombergNEF data.
Still, the president’s statement suggests a more aggressive approach toward reducing carbon emissions. Prabowo’s predecessor in 2022 entered a $20 billion deal with multinational funders to retire some coal plants earlier than expected, although it’s struggled so far to make headway.
The country is also using palm oil to produce more biofuels, Prabowo said, and is seeking to use its massive rain forests to produce more than than 550 million tons of carbon credits.
--With assistance from David Stringer.
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