Indonesia plays leading role as world’s new renewable energy source: Minister

Jakarta (Indonesia Window) – Indonesia will play an important role in saving the Earth and becoming a new source of renewable energy for the world, said Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif at the Climate Leaders Message event on Thursday (Oct. 28).

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report has invited all countries around the world to push down climate change, especially by reducing greenhouse gases or carbon dioxide emissions massively so that the scenario of the earth’s temperature increase above 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next decade could be prevented.

The U.N. climate change conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, in early November will formulate the commitment of all countries in the world to prevent the earth from catastrophe.

“Indonesia has been a country participating in efforts to prevent climate change,” said Arifin.

Individually, Indonesia will reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 29 percent by 2030. If this step is taken together or in collaboration with the world community, the commitment to reduce emissions could be increased to 41 percent.

According to the minister, Indonesia has been starting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by optimizing the use of bioenergy; promoting the use of electric vehicles; and shifting fossil fuel-powered plants to the ones sourced from sunlight, hydro, wind and geothermal energy.

Technology in the field of renewable energy has developed rapidly in recent times, with one megawatt of electricity being generated from 0.5 hectares of solar panel area (photovoltaic), from one hectare earlier.

With the abundance of renewable energy sources in Indonesia, not only would this archipelagic country be able to meet domestic needs, but also export them.

“We have started this initiative with 100 megawatts of electricity coming from the sunlight which we will export from Bulan island (Riau Islands province) to Singapore in 2024,” said Arifin.

Reporting by Indonesia Window