US Leaves Paris Agreement, Potentially Barriers To International Funding

Illustration (Photo: Sixflashphoto via Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - United States President Donald Trump took controversial steps by removing his country from the Paris Agreement relating to efforts to tackle the climate crisis.

Fossil Energy Campaigner Trend Asia Novita Indri said the US's resignation risks hampering the world's energy transition mission to combat the climate crisis.

In addition, Novita said that this has the potential to hinder international funding efforts because of the potential for reduced US commitment to helping developing countries, including Indonesia, which is stated in the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) agreement.

"The loss of US leadership is considered to open up opportunities for alternative leadership that are more collaborative," he said in his statement, Tuesday, February 4.

According to him, it is still necessary to reconsider the schemes of fair cooperation with other countries, including developing countries, to be able to achieve the Paris Agreement targets.

Paris' agreement should be seen not only as a promise on paper containing technical languages to reduce emissions, but the agreement is a commitment to save humanity. The climate crisis has already occurred and its impact is in sight," Novita said.

Analysis of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in 2023 shows that the three most emission-producing countries are occupied by China, the United States, and India, which contribute around 42.6 percent of total global emissions.

According to Novita, changes due to the resignation of the US do not mean that Indonesia must relax energy transition efforts amid the threat of a climate crisis.

From the start, JETP funding was indeed unclear regarding its realization. He is just repackaging from old commitments and is dominated by debt schemes that have the potential to burden Indonesia," said Novita.

On the other hand, Novita regretted the statement by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Bahlil Lahadalia in an economic forum that stated that Indonesia did not need to rush to make an energy transition and was trapped in the Paris Agreement in the midst of the U.S. resignation and the lack of energy transition assistance funds from JETP.

Bahlil should have realized how anti-science and controversial Trump's steps are in the eyes of the international community. Don't imitate and get caught in the race to the bottom," he said.

According to Novita, this should encourage Indonesia to increase mitigation and adaptation efforts because we are vulnerable to the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, based on the monitoring of the disaster data portal of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) from January 1 to January 31, 2025, the most frequent disasters were floods (165 incidents), followed by extreme weather (13 incidents), and landslides (18 incidents) which caused 635,336 people to suffer and had to evacuate.

According to Novita, all forms of this disaster have close correlations with the impact of the climate crisis.

"As a tropical archipelagic country, Indonesia is also threatened with storms, floods, droughts, and food crises due to the climate crisis. We must actually take the energy transition more seriously to protect national resilience," said Novita.

Novita said that Indonesia must seriously work on sources of energy transition funding from within the country with sources that are in sight. For example, from the potential state revenue from increasing coal production levies.

Coal production in 2024 will reach more than 833 million tons and is predicted to exceed 900 million tons in the future.

According to Sustain, the potential for state revenue from increasing coal production levies from corporations that have continued to get super normal profits can reach 23.58 billion US dollars per year, this alone is already greater than JETP's commitment, concluded Novita.