Inside Indonesia's First-Ever Climate Bill: What We Know So Far

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Over the past few weeks I've sat in on a handful of discussions on Indonesia's draft climate law — one organized by the House of Representatives, another by the Kehati Foundation. I keep coming back to these forums because this bill matters more than most: it's set to become the legal umbrella for climate policy in Indonesia, and the governance decisions being made this decade will shape how livable this planet's biosphere remains for thousands of years to come. Government and MPR have now agreed to accelerate work on the RUU — here's a recap of some of what's come out of these discussions so far.

What is this bill about?

This isn't a new idea that appeared out of nowhere in September. It's been sitting in the Prolegnas (National Legislation Program) since last year — it started life as an initiative draft from Fraksi PAN back in August 2025, got formally slotted into Prolegnas Prioritas 2026 on 2 July 2026, and on 16 July 2026 Commission XII decided it should be its own standalone bill rather than folded into something else. If you want the raw, unfiltered version of how this has been discussed at the DPR level, Komisi XII held an RDP with KLH on 3 September 2026 that's up on TVR Parlemen.

Why we need a standalone climate law?

The climate crisis is already at the urgent stage — and it needs specific, dedicated handling because it cuts across so many sectors at once — energy, forestry, land use, finance, social protection — in a way no single existing law was built to carry. There was actually an earlier plan to fold climate governance into the revision of the Environmental Protection Law (UU PPLH) instead of writing something new. That fell apart for exactly this reason — the scope got too big, too cross-sectoral, for a PPLH revision to carry without breaking under its own weight.

RCCC UI made the comparison explicit in their own deck at the forum: UU PPLH regulates environmental media — air, water, soil — with impacts that are local, identifiable, and present-tense. A climate law has to deal with a global system: cumulative, cross-border, cross-generational emissions and risk.

Different object, different instruments, different philosophical foundation.

Their conclusion: this should be a lex specialis that complements UU PPLH, not a subsection buried inside it. And it's not just an Indonesia-specific call — splitting off a dedicated climate law is very much the global trend at this point. Indonesia is playing catch-up here, not setting a precedent.

What's actually being regulated, and what's the purpose?

Based on the KLH deck presented at the public hearing, the bill's outline lays out a national climate strategy architecture aimed mainly at creating an integrated national climate legal framework aligned with all of Indonesia's international commitments, achieving the NDC target, and strengthening cross-sector and central/regional coordination, among other things. A few points came up repeatedly in the discussion and are worth highlighting:

NEK (Nilai Ekonomi Karbon / Carbon Economic Value) — the fiscal and market side: carbon trading, results-based payments, carbon levies, and other instruments. Until now, this has only ever been governed at the Perpres level (Perpres 98/2021, 111/2022, and 110/2025) — this bill would be the first time it gets primary legislation underneath it.
The "badan iklim" question — should there be a brand-new climate authority, or should we keep the independent Komite Ilmiah (Komrah) sit under KLH/BPLH as coordinator instead?
Mitigasi (Mitigation) — sectoral targets across six sectors, tied to the Net Zero 2060 goal and the Long-Term Strategy (LTS-LCCR).
Adaptasi (Adaptation) — resilience-building across eight areas, plus — genuinely new — a dedicated Loss and Damage mechanism, something Indonesia has never formally legislated before.
The "justice and prosperity" angle — the newest addition, reportedly pushed by the government side: a third pillar alongside mitigation and adaptation, explicitly focused on the economic opportunity created by the transition, and on ensuring wealth and benefits from that transition are genuinely shared with the communities on the ground (masyarakat tapak) closest to where it's actually happening."

The stated purpose across all of it, per both the MPR and KLH materials, is to give Indonesia a single, coherent legal umbrella for climate governance that current sectoral regulations and ministerial rules can't provide — while building in the "berkeadilan" (justice) layer: protection for coastal communities, indigenous groups, and workers in transition, plus Anti-SLAPP protection for the people and journalists who end up defending this in public.

Where's the process right now?

Based on this timeline, the bill is currently in the public consultation stage, where lawmakers intend to carry out a series of roadshows to gather input from relevant stakeholders. No official draft has been circulated yet — both the academic paper (naskah akademik) and the RUU itself are still being refined.

This is where a note from our friends at Think Policy becomes important: active public participation needs to be built in from the very start — not just as a formality where people are informed after the fact, but as real discussion, with stakeholders actually sitting at the table. That's exactly why this draft is so eagerly awaited — the worry is that it only gets released once the process is already near its final stages, by which point meaningful input is much harder to fold in.

What are the experts and NGOs already saying?

Several organizations have already published their feedback and comments on the bill, including WALHI, WRI, KEHATI, and RCCC UI (Universitas Indonesia's Research Center for Climate Change).

RCCC UI came in with a very structured proposal: a clean two-layer target architecture, with a broad "national climate action target" covering every sector — inside and outside the NDC — acting as the legal umbrella, the NDC itself sitting inside it as the internationally-facing commitment, and NEK explicitly positioned as a financing instrument serving both, rather than a third parallel track. On Loss and Damage, they proposed a genuinely useful three-part test for when something actually counts: attribution (was it caused or intensified by climate change), residual (did it happen despite reasonable mitigation/adaptation), and independent verification of the loss before any status is granted.

I'm currently preparing our own input on the bill on behalf of ACEXI members. A few of the points we're focusing on (among others):

Inclusivity for small-scale projects — making sure the bill doesn't inadvertently lock out smaller, community-level climate initiatives in favor of large corporate ones.
Internalizing climate obligations into economic and business activity — essentially, climate disclosure as a standard part of doing business, not an afterthought.
Green jobs — the deck already includes climate due diligence as a requirement, and we think this should come with a standardized, certified "profesi penunjang iklim" (climate support professional) framework, so it actually creates green job opportunities for local talent — not just work for foreign consultants.
Affirming carbon units as eligible collateral for financing — giving carbon units clear legal standing as an object of security/guarantee, so they can actually be used to unlock financing.
Mandatory funding allocation for adaptation — not just mitigation, which tends to get all the attention (and the money).