Indonesia Pushes Carbon Trading to Cut GHG Emissions

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta – Carbon trading is being promoted as a key component of Indonesia’s strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The government is also developing a sustainable financing scheme to strengthen forest conservation and promote green economic development.

Indonesian Minister of Forestry, Raja Juli Antoni, said the government is building an integrated ecosystem that links emissions reductions to performance-based financing. “The aim is to make this funding available for broader activities or programs benefiting the recipients,” Minister Raja Juli said in Jakarta on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, as quoted by Antara.

According to Minister Raja Juli, the national carbon market already has several regulations and supporting instruments, including the Carbon Unit Registry System (SRUK). This instrument serves as the foundation for recording and managing carbon units.

The SRUK is managed by the Ministry of Environment to record, manage, and verify carbon units traded. The system is also designed to ensure that carbon trading takes place transparently, credibly, and with integrity, while preventing double-counting of emission reductions.

In addition to carbon trading, the government is strengthening climate-based financing through the Environmental Fund Management Agency (BPDLH). This funding comes, among other sources, from the Green Climate Fund (GCF) through Results-Based Payments (RBP) and from Norway through Results-Based Contributions (RBC).

As of 2026, 10 proposals from 10 provinces have been evaluated and have entered the program implementation preparation phase. Meanwhile, 34 provinces have accessed funding under the GCF REDD+ RBP Output 2 program, with a total commitment of IDR 761 billion (approximately USD 42.6 million), representing 94.8 percent of the allocation for the provinces.

Minister Raja Juli hopes that these increasingly robust funding schemes will sustainably strengthen the forest protection system. “Hopefully, with these various improved and more robust schemes, we will be able to build a system to protect our forests even better in the future,” he added. ***