Alfy Ifthikhar – Indonesia's Climate Change Management Bill, known as the RUU Pengendalian Perubahan Iklim (PPI), has been suspended at the harmonization stage in the House of Representatives, Indonesia's lower house of parliament, since Wednesday, February 4, 2026, after one parliamentary commission proposed folding it into a revision of the country's 2009 environmental law rather than passing it as a stand-alone statute. The suspension has left unresolved whether the bill will become a single consolidating framework for Indonesia's fragmented climate and carbon-pricing rules.
The bill is one of 67 pieces of legislation in the 2026 National Legislation Program, a priority list approved at a House plenary session on Tuesday, September 23, 2025 chaired by Speaker Puan Maharani. The House Legislation Body, known as Baleg, held its first harmonization session on Thursday, January 15, 2026. On February 4, 2026, Baleg Chair Bob Hasan announced the suspension after Commission XII proposed integrating the bill's substance into a comprehensive revision of Law No. 32 of 2009 on Environmental Protection and Management. Hasan said the proposal was contextual and that integration could strengthen legal certainty, noting the 2009 law falls into a category that permits comprehensive revision.
A split over structure
Members of parliament are divided over whether climate change warrants its own law. Eddy Soeparno, a Deputy Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and a member of Commission XII from the National Mandate Party, argued for a separate statute at a July 6, 2026 hearing with the Ministry of Environment, saying that although climate change is a matter for specialized law, its scope has become too broad to fold into environmental management. Ratna Juwita Sari of the National Awakening Party similarly said the climate bill should remain separate. At the first harmonization session in January, bill sponsor Andi Yuliani Paris of the National Mandate Party stressed the need for a dedicated climate law, citing developed countries with standalone climate statutes and pointing to regulatory overlaps ranging from carbon trading supervised by the Financial Services Authority to industry-specific emission rules.
Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono, a Deputy Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly and chair of the Democratic Party faction in the House, set out six issues he said the bill must address at a party forum in Jakarta on Monday, August 31, 2026. He listed measurable targets, institutional arrangements, adaptation, financing, a just transition for affected workers and communities, and data and accountability. Edhie Baskoro said Indonesia was not starting from scratch, citing the Paris Agreement, the country's Nationally Determined Contribution, existing carbon economic instruments, and a net zero emissions target of 2060 or sooner, and framed the central question as whether those elements are integrated, measurable, coordinated, adequately financed and subject to oversight. He warned against adding to regulatory overlap, saying the debate must decide which material belongs in a law and which is already governed by other laws. "A good law is not the one with the most articles. A good law is the one whose benefits are most felt by the people," he said.
The fragmented base the bill could consolidate
Indonesia's carbon-pricing rules are currently spread across several instruments. Presidential Regulation No. 110 of 2025 on carbon economic value replaced an earlier 2021 regulation and structures the regime through carbon trading, results-based payment and a carbon levy. A carbon tax of Rp 30 per kilogram of carbon dioxide equivalent, legislated under the 2021 Tax Harmonization Law and originally due to take effect on April 1, 2022 for coal-fired power plants, remains unimplemented, pending a government regulation on a carbon tax roadmap; the Finance Ministry has cited post-pandemic economic conditions, business readiness and the need to synchronize with the carbon market. Coal plant early retirement is governed by Presidential Regulation No. 112 of 2022, which the Energy Ministry said in late 2025 still requires deeper technical and financial study.
Indonesia's carbon exchange, IDXCarbon, launched on September 26, 2023 under the supervision of the Financial Services Authority and operated by the Indonesia Stock Exchange. Financial Services Authority Deputy Commissioner Eddy Manindo Harahap said cumulative trading reached Rp 80.75 billion by the end of 2025, covering 1,645,269 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent across 362 transactions and 150 users, an increase of 309.27 percent from Rp 19.73 billion a year earlier.
Civil society presses for a rights-based law
Environmental groups have criticized the government's draft. The Indonesian Forum for the Environment, known as Walhi, published seven notes on January 19, 2026 arguing the draft treats climate change as a technical management issue rather than a rights-based crisis and lacks a drastic emission-reduction objective, and said it prefers the title "Climate Justice Bill." The Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, known as ICEL, has argued Indonesia lacks a law that directly addresses the climate crisis, with only presidential regulations on carbon economic value and carbon trading in place. Fabby Tumiwa of the Institute for Essential Services Reform has also argued that carbon trading should be a last resort after ambitious emission cuts and that Indonesia's market is not linked to its climate targets because no company faces a mandatory reduction obligation.