Indonesia is aiming to extend its use of biodiesel blends as a renewable and various gasoline, however critics say it may undermine the nation’s local weather objectives.
In August 2023, the nation launched biodiesel blended with 35 per cent palm oil content material, a gasoline combine referred to as B35, and its authorities has not too long ago reaffirmed plans to introduce obligatory use of B40 – upping the palm oil content material to 40 per cent – by January.
Biodiesel is a renewable gasoline constructed from vegetable oils or biomass, reminiscent of algae materials and animal waste. It’s blended with diesel to be used in automobiles, and in Indonesia the blends use palm oil.
Campaigners and specialists have now warned that the deliberate enhance of palm oil within the gasoline combine will result in plantation expansions and subsequently extra deforestation.
Extra palm oil means extra clearings
Indonesia’s coordinating minister for financial affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, instructed media in September that the federal government saved IDR 404.32 trillion between 2018 and 2022 as a result of the obligatory use of biodiesel decreased the quantity of diesel imports required.
However because the obligatory biodiesel mix rises, so too will home demand for crude palm oil (CPO), specialists and campaigners say. This can be additional fueled by newly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto’s formidable push to ultimately implement B100, or 100 per cent crude palm oil, in a transfer supposed to shift the nation away from reliance on imported diesel and produce Indonesia in the direction of vitality self-sufficiency.
Indonesia produced 50 million tonnes of CPO in 2023, a rise of seven per cent from the earlier yr, in accordance with the Indonesian Palm Oil Entrepreneurs Affiliation (GAPKI). The nation is the world’s high CPO producer, with Airlangga saying that it accounted for 54 per cent of world exports that very same yr.
In keeping with information from MapBiomas, in the course of the previous twenty years, the nation has seen a 145 per cent enhance in land used for palm oil plantations, from 7.2 million hectares in 2000 to 17.7 million hectares in 2022.
“The [MapBiomas] information reveals that for the final twenty years, the Indonesian authorities has all the time used typical technique to satisfy rising demand for palm oil – that’s, to develop oil palm plantations,” stated Iqbal Damanik, a forest campaigner with Greenpeace Indonesia.
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Biodiesel does not likely contribute a lot to Indonesia’s financial system, solely [benefitting] the palm oil firms.
Fiorentina Refani, researcher, Heart of Financial Research and Regulation
An April 2024 report by Greenpeace Indonesia, Satya Bumi, Traction Power Asia and the Indonesian Palm Oil Farmers Union (SPKS) units out potential eventualities for the federal government’s biofuel targets.
It discovered that worldwide and home demand for palm oil for all functions will attain 67.1 million metric tonnes (mt) in 2042 if the biodiesel mix stays on the present B35 till then. But when the federal government implements B50 in 2025 – essentially the most aggressive state of affairs projected by the report, and one which Prabowo is aiming for – demand for palm oil will enhance to 75.63 million mt by 2042, it famous.
“The present manufacturing won’t lower it for future wants,” says Iqbal. “Indonesia can be pressured to open [up] extra forests to supply extra crude palm oil.”
The evaluation additionally states that within the state of affairs the place B50 is adopted subsequent yr, the potential for deforestation exceeds 1.5 million hectares by 2039.
“Our calculations are nonetheless conservative, even within the aggressive state of affairs,” Damanik provides.
There are round 3.4 million hectares of dormant forest inside oil palm plantation concessions, that are totally on the islands of Papua and Kalimantan, and “the primary areas to endure destruction can be [these] remaining [forests] within the concessions”, famous Damanik.
Catra de Thouars, vice chair on promotion and communication for the Indonesian Biofuel Producers Affiliation (Aprobi), stated the nation’s infrastructure is ready for implementing the upper mixes of biodiesel, and that it “will help the federal government whether or not it decides to go [with] B40 or B50,” he stated. “But when the combination reaches B50, further manufacturing capability is required.”
Aprobi’s vice chair of analysis and expertise, Jummy BM Sinaga, additionally stated at an vitality discussion board in August that Indonesia’s 20 million kilolitre annual biodiesel capability was nonetheless ample for rising the biodiesel combination to B40, the trial for which is being rolled out in phases.
Local weather objectives in danger?
Changing forest into oil palm plantations can decrease carbon inventory and trigger different impacts, reminiscent of groundwater storage, erosion prevention, and biodiversity preservation, notes Shahnaz Nur Firdausi, an vitality and local weather analyst on the Institute for Important Providers Reform (IESR).
As well as, clearing forest areas by burning to make manner for plantations releases a major quantity of carbon dioxide into the surroundings, which “will make it more durable for Indonesia to satisfy its local weather targets”, she provides.
In 2022, Indonesia unveiled its latest local weather pledge, the improved Nationally Decided Contribution (NDC). It notes that the land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) business is among the main contributors of emissions in Indonesia.
In 2019, the business was accountable for simply over half of the nation’s emissions (50.13 per cent), inclusive of peat fires, adopted by vitality (34.49 per cent), waste (6.52 per cent), and industrial actions and product consumption (3.15 per cent). Indonesia goals to have its carbon sequestration from the forestry and different land use (FOLU) sector be “increased than, or not less than equal to its total emissions” by 2030.
Within the nation’s enhanced NDC, biodiesel turns into one technique to scale back emissions, particularly from the vitality sector. Nonetheless, adopting a biodiesel coverage to perform such objectives may backfire. A 2017 examine concluded that biodiesel insurance policies don’t present any web local weather advantages, primarily due to excessive emissions related to elevated pressures on palm oil growth.
It famous that, ignoring the carbon value of land use, the online carbon good thing about biodiesel is 5 to seven tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per yr. Nonetheless, taking land use under consideration, “within the case that the palm oil biodiesel got here from a brand new plantation on beforehand forested peatland, as an alternative of a carbon saving, there could be a dramatic enhance in estimated web emissions of 120 tonnes carbon dioxide per hectare per yr”.
Fiorentina Refani, a researcher on the Heart of Financial Research and Regulation (Celios), says that Indonesia should impose a everlasting palm oil moratorium to guard the remaining forests from the danger of land clearing and deforestation.
A Celios examine that has not but been printed, however has seen by Dialogue Earth, notes {that a} moratorium coverage, together with forest replanting, will end in financial output of IDR 27.3 trillion by 2045, whereas an absence of a moratorium will come at a lack of IDR 27.9 trillion.
“The federal government nonetheless wants to offer incentives for this program; biodiesel does not likely contribute a lot to Indonesia’s financial system, solely [benefitting] the palm oil firms,” Fiorentina says, including that Indonesia ought to deliver again the moratorium, which was in place from 2018 to 2021.
Concentrate on the underlying downside
IESR analysis supervisor Raditya Yudha Wiranegara acknowledges that use of biodiesel means carbon monoxide and particulate matter vehicular emissions will be decreased, noting that the institute’s ongoing evaluation confirmed a 15 per cent discount in emissions when B30 was used in comparison with petrol.
“However we even have to contemplate emissions holistically, from upstream to downstream,” he says, emphasising that biodiesel can’t be a long-term answer to chop emissions within the vitality business.
Raditya means that as an alternative, the federal government ought to consider the event of solar energy and steadily section out coal-fired energy services.
In the meantime, Shahnaz says that stopping forest fires of any trigger would be the most important solution to decrease emissions from the LULUCF sector – the largest supply of emissions in Indonesia. After that, reforestation and afforestation efforts ought to proceed, she provides.
Sayyidatiihayaa Afra, a coverage researcher at Satya Bumi, a civil society group specializing in environmental advocacy, says biodiesel “is a driver of deforestation, and if the mix goal retains on rising, it’ll actually be a setback for Indonesia’s local weather efforts”.
Iqbal of Greenpeace Indonesia provides: “Given the dangers to local weather and surroundings, Indonesia’s biodiesel mix has to cease at B35.”
This text was initially printed on Dialogue Earth below a Artistic Commons licence.
