Jakarta. Energy Minister Bahlil Ladahalia recently slammed a survey that heavily criticized his first 100 days in office in the new administration, saying that abandoning coal power would require a great deal of money.

Think tank Celios not long ago released the survey results that scored how President Prabowo Subianto’s ministers did in their first 100 days since the gigantic ant Merah Putih cabinet came to existence late October. Bahlil was among Former President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s ministers that kept his previous post in the current administration. But according to Celios’ 100-day scorecard, Bahlil was not off to a good start. Bahlil had the third-lowest score, although still doing better than Cooperatives Minister Budi Arie Setiadi and Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai who did the worst in the report. Bahlil scored the second-lowest among his peers when it comes to energy and environmental policies. The document attributed Bahlil’s bad report card to, among others, his lack of clear direction on coal plant retirement plans despite the G20’s calls for energy transition during Brazil’s presidency of the group last year. Bahlil, however, believes he does not deserve the bad grades.

“So the survey wrote that my ministry had not determined the policy direction for transition to renewables. So I asked myself, are foreign actors behind this? Is this a new type of colonialism in our country? How can we be forced to retire coal plants? Who will fund their [early retirement]. They say that there is a donor that will fund [our transition]. Where are they? To this day, we receive zero [financing],” Bahlil told the 2025 Beritasatu Economic Outlook conference in Jakarta.

According to Bahlil, Indonesia at present is focusing on securing energy supply for its sizable population. While Indonesia is open to weaning off coal, Indonesia would only do so if it has the money. The minister also discarded the idea of relying on the state budget to retire the coal plants. He added: “We will do it [early coal plant retirement]  if we have the funding. If there is no money, well, sorry, boss. We have to safeguard our domestic energy supply. We have to be fair.”

Indonesia generates 67 percent of its power from coal. But at the same time, the archipelagic country is currently developing its renewable energy, including solar and hydropower, to name a few. Bahlil told the same conference that Indonesia was mulling installing carbon capture technology in its coal power generation instead of entirely relying on renewable energy for now. This way, Indonesia can reduce its coal use without disrupting the national energy supply. Bahlil also revealed that the government was “still calculating” the total costs for carbon capture technology use in coal power generation.

When Indonesia chaired the G20 in 2022, the country secured a climate funding package worth up to $20 billion under the so-called Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) scheme. About $10 billion of that funding came from a pool of public money gathered by a coalition of rich nations called the International Partners Group (IPG) co-led by the US and Japan. The other half would be sourced from a group of international financial institutions. The IPG later decided to raise the funding by another $1.5 billion.

However, Bahlil alluded that the money had yet to actually be disbursed to Indonesia’s coal plant retirement plans. Later that day, his aide Eniya Listiani Dewi shared the latest updates on the JETP funding, saying that Indonesia was "still carrying out an exercise"  to determine whether the country really needed to discontinue its coal plants as requested by the JETP.

Norway is among the advanced economies of the IPG that also chipped in money to Indonesia’s JETP package. Norway has pledged to provide $250 million through its Climate Investment Fund. Last year, the Norwegian Climate Investment Fund unveiled $29.6 million in direct investments in Indonesia’s renewable energy projects, namely rooftop solar, combined solar and battery, as well as a hydropower project. A few months ago, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) revealed that it had greenlit a $500 million policy-based loan for Indonesia's energy transition.

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