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Indonesia

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In November 2025, seven plaintiffs consisting of four Indonesian individual citizens (M. Ali Akbar, Hadi Priyanto, Sumiati Surbakti, and Wahyu Widiarto) and three environmental NGOs (WALHI, Trend Asia, and Greenpeace Indonesia) filed a state administrative lawsuit (gugatan tata usaha negara) at the Jakarta Administrative Court (PTUN Jakarta) against the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of the Republic of Indonesia.

The contested administrative act is Ministerial Decree No. 188.K/TL.03/MEM.L/2025, signed 05/26/2025 and publicly released 06/03/2025, which approved PT PLN (Indonesia State Utility Company)’s Electricity Supply Business Plan for 2025–2034. The Business Plan is the binding electricity planning document governing Indonesia’s state electricity company and determining the national power generation mix for a decade.

The four individual plaintiffs reside near coal-fired power plants (PLTU) in Bengkulu, Jakarta, Medan, and Bandung, and are consumers of PLN electricity. They alleged direct harm to their constitutional rights to a healthy environment and clean air. 

Together, the Plaintiffs argued the Business Plan 2025–2034 is unlawful on multiple grounds. First, the Business Plan violates the National Long-Term Development Plan Law (UU RPJPN 2025–2045), which mandates coal phase-out beginning in 2030. Instead, the Business Plan replaces “coal phase-out” language from the prior RUPTL 2021–2030 with “coal phase-down”. The plan also includes provisions to extend existing coal plant lifetimes by 10 - 20 years through cofiring retrofits and contract extensions, and contains no coal retirement roadmap for either its 2025 - 2029 or 2030 - 2034 planning phases. Second, the Business Plan violates Presidential Regulation No. 112/2022, which prohibits new coal plants (except those already in the pipeline by 2021) and mandates a coal phase-out roadmap with specific components. The plaintiffs asserted that the Business Plan includes approximately 2,600 MW of new coal plants beyond what was included in the 2021 - 2030 Business Plan. 

Third, the Business Plan was issued without a Strategic Environmental Assessment (Kajian Lingkungan Hidup Strategis / KLHS) as required under Law No. 32 of 2009, despite the Business Plan projecting a significant increase in CO₂ emissions from 309 million tons/year in 2025 to 374 million tons/year by 2034. Fourth, the Business Plan violates human rights obligations by perpetuating and expanding the documented harmful health and environmental impacts of coal plants, including air pollution, premature deaths, and ecological degradation. Fifth, the Business Plan violates the Electricity Law’s principles of cost efficiency and energy optimization by planning expensive gas and nuclear (Small Modular Reactors) capacity without full economic analysis and by underestimating renewable energy cost competitiveness which has reached historic low. Sixth, the Business Plan violates Indonesia’s obligations under the Paris Agreement ratification law by regressing from prior climate commitments, including lowering the 2030 renewable energy target from 24.8% to 19.3–21% by 2030.

Plaintiffs seek the court to declare the PLN’s Business Plan 2025–2034 null and void, order the Minister to revoke it, and compel the issuance of a new, lawful RUPTL consistent with Indonesian legislation and good governance principles.

In September 2025, two Indonesian environmental NGOs — Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) and Yayasan Trend Asia — filed an administrative lawsuit at the Jakarta State Administrative Court (PTUN Jakarta) against the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia. The case challenges Ministerial Decree No. 85.K/TL.01/MEM.L/2025, the National Electricity General Plan (Rencana Umum Ketenagalistrikan Nasional / RUKN), issued on March 2025, spanning over the period of 2025-2060.

The plaintiffs alleged that the National Electricity Plan 2025-2060 was unlawful on several procedural grounds. First, the National Electricity Plan was issued without a valid National Energy Policy (Kebijakan Energi Nasional) regulation, in which the Energy and Electricity Law mandated the National Energy Policy as the key reference for all energy sector planning documents, including the national electricity plan. The applicable National Energy Policy (Government Regulation No. 79 of 2014) was not referenced; instead the decree relied on a still-unratified draft of the National Energy Policy that was later enacted 6 months after the National Electricity Plan was formalized in September 2025. 

Second, the National Electricity Plan 2025-2060 was issued without a mandatory Strategic Environmental Assessment (KLHS) as required by the law that every planning document has to conduct SEA; and Third, the National Electricity Plan was issued without involving regional governments; at least three provinces (North Maluku, Bali, and Southeast Sulawesi) confirmed they were never consulted.

Substantively, the plaintiffs argued that the National Electricity Plan does not include a coal retirement roadmap, directly contradicting legal mandates required by the Long-Term Development Plan 2025-2045 and Presidential Regulation No. 112 of 2022. Instead, the plan includes projection to extend all coal plants through co-firing, CCS retrofitting, and fuel switching to ammonia or hydrogen. Furthermore, plaintiffs also asserted that the Plan includes energy options that are prohibitively expensive and technologically unproven, including a 35 GW nuclear expansion, in violation of the Energy Law that requires the Electricity Plan to optimize all energy sources and consider the most cost-effective projection. 

In addition, the National Electricity Plan is inconsistent with Indonesia's Paris Agreement obligations, projecting a GHG peak in 2037 rather than by 2030, and relying on faulty emissions assumptions that could result in warming exceeding 4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; The plaintiffs argued that the Plan violates constitutionally protected human rights including the right to health, the right to life, the right to welfare, and the right to meaningful public participation.

The plaintiffs ask the court to declare the RUKN 2025 null and void, order the Minister to revoke it, and order the Minister to issue a new, lawful RUKN that complies with applicable regulations and the principles of good governance.

On July 14, 2022, 14 applicants filed a complaint against the Indonesian government to the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission. The complainants are youth and affected groups from various generations and regions in Indonesia who are affected by climate change. The complainants claimed that climate change has caused the complainants to face life-threatening hazards, reduced physical and mental well-being, increased health risks, food and water insecurity, along with disruption to their education and livelihoods. The complainants stated that they had experienced various impacts caused by climate change including 1) heat waves that caused death and heat-related illness and decreased productivity of outdoor works; 2) sea level rise which causes coral reef bleaching and declining fish stocks, causing food and job insecurity in tourism and fisheries; 3) an increase in extreme heat and rainfall brings disease, water and food insecurity; 4) the occurrence of tidal flooding, high waves, and strong winds due to sea level rise endangering lives and causing loss of shelter and vulnerability to food and water; and 5) complainants' aggravated mental health.

The complainants claim that the Indonesian government has violated their human rights guaranteed by the Indonesian constitution, by not taking the necessary mitigation and adaptation measures to prevent temperature rises above 1.5 degrees. The claim came from the fact that: 1) Indonesia is still heavily dependent on deforestation and fossil fuels, especially coal for economic growth; 2) Indonesia has inadequate emission reduction targets; 3) Indonesia still allocates significant available resources to support carbon-intensive industries; 4) Indonesia does not integrate adaptation planning into domestic policies and budgeting 5) Indonesia fails to ensure that social protection mechanisms work to reduce vulnerability to disasters and climate-related stresses; and 6) Indonesia does not prioritize nature-based adaptation. The complaint alleges that Indonesia government’s insufficient action on climate change has violated the following rights under Indonesia constitution: 1) the right to life and the right to a good and healthy environment, 2) the right to develop oneself through the fulfillment of basic needs, 3) the right to food and water, 4) the right to education, 5) the right to work and earn a decent living, and 6) children's rights.

On September 9, 2019, the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry (the MoEF) filed a tort-based lawsuit against a corporation PT Asia Palem Lestari had intentionally set fires to clear the peatland for palm oil plantation. Furthermore, the MoEF also argued that defendant’s fires preventive facilities did not meet the requirements as regulated in Articles 12, 13, and 14 Indonesian Governmental Regulation No. 4 of 2021. The MoEF argued that fires inside the peatlands led to ecological and economic damages amounting to IDR 173.721 billion. In relation to climate change, the MoEF claimed that the fires had contributed to the release of 2700 tC and a loss of function of carbon sinks which equal to 945 tC. Since the cost of released carbon is IDR 90.000 (equals to US$ 10), the MoEF requested the court costs of the released carbon and restoration amounting to IDR 328.050.000. 

The MoEF filed this lawsuit under strict liability rule of Articles 88 Environmental Protection and Management Act (the 2009 EPMA). 

On January 5, 2021, the District Court of North Jakarta ruled that the lawsuit should be dismissed due to a lack of parties (plurium litis consortium). The judges found that the area in which the MoEF referred in its lawsuit were also owned by other people. Hence, the plaintiff should have included these people—who were also the owner of the burned land—in the lawsuit. 


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