Indonesia urged to play more active role in global climate diplomacy
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- Dino Patti Djalal, Chairman and Founder of the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI), opened INZS 2026 at Balai Kartini in Jakarta on Aug 1, calling climate change "the greatest blind spot in world affairs" and urging Indonesia to play a more active role in climate diplomacy.
- FPCI recommended Indonesia push the issue in the G20 — whose member states account for nearly 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions — and participate actively in COP31, scheduled for Antalya, Turkey in November.
- FPCI also urged Indonesia to speak candidly to the US about its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, noting that the US resuming coal use forces other countries to shoulder a greater emissions burden.
- Minister of Environment Moh Jumhur Hidayat said Indonesia is preparing its COP31 agenda, including a carbon trading package, and that the government considers biodiversity loss one of three major environmental crises alongside climate change and pollution.
- Deputy Minister of Environment Diaz Faisal Malik Hendropriyono pointed to BRICS as a forum Indonesia could strengthen participation in, noting the bloc's New Development Bank has been encouraged to allocate 40% of its financing to green projects and that Indonesia's own climate financing gap "remains enormous."
- China's Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin said Beijing is ready to work with Indonesia, noting China has cooperated on green energy projects with more than 100 countries and regions and had signed climate MoUs with developing countries under South-South cooperation as of June 2026.
- INZS 2026, now in its fifth year and launched in 2021, drew approximately 9,500 participants to Jakarta, with the majority being young people from universities across Indonesia.
Why it matters: Indonesia holds a G20 seat alongside the world's largest emitters and the world's largest tropical forests — a dual leverage point FPCI wants converted into diplomatic capital at COP31 and beyond. The push for a carbon trading package and BRICS engagement is explicitly tied to closing an "enormous" climate financing gap, while China's envoy showing up in person signals Beijing is courting Jakarta as a South-South partner on green energy.
