Governing net zero transition at subnational level in Indonesia: a comparative study of provincial and district authorities in organizing and implementing net-zero transitions as policy entrepreneurs and governance entrepreneurs

Background Climate change is one of the major challenges of our time (United Nations, 2021; IPCC, 2022). UN agencies, scholars, and civil society organizations from different parts of the globe signal that the impacts of climate change are global in scope and unprecedented in scale. In 2015, 197 countries adopted the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below two degrees Celsius compared to pre- industrial levels (Climate Action Tracker, 2021; UNEP, 2021). Emission reduction has become a shared goal of the international community in recent years with more countries and businesses around the world committed to producing zero net emissions of greenhouse gases by mid-century (Meinshausen et al., 2022). As the largest archipelagic country in the world, Indonesia is vulnerable to the adverse impact of climate change as a result of drought, flooding, landslides, and sea level rise (World Bank, 2021). Indonesia is eager to reduce its emissions but is also the world’s fourth-largest producer of coal, a major exporter of global agricultural commodities, and strongly committed to investing in economic and rural development. The government has targeted 2060 to achieve net-zero emissions (GoI, 2022). To be able to reach that goal, government agencies - together with businesses and society - will have to organize systemic changes in several sectors. Through its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted to the UNFCCC on 22 July 2021, Indonesia boldened its climate commitments by increasing its greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions target to 29% unconditionally and 41% conditionally (with international support), compared tothebusiness-as-usual (BAU) scenarios, by 2030. With the updated NDC, Indonesia has also strengthened alignment between the country’s climate and development objectives, providing indicative pathways towards Vision Indonesia 2045 and the Long-Term Strategy on Low Carbon and Climate Resilient Development 2050 (LTS-LCCR 2050), as well as adopting the Paris Agreement Rule Book (Katowice Package) into Indonesia's context. The year of 2022 is a new milestone as the government of Indonesia announced more ambitious climate targets, which increases the country’s 2030 emission reduction target from 29% to 31.89% (unconditionally)and from 41% to 43.2% (conditionally), compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, in its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat. This is a slight increase from Indonesia’s previous targets that were set just a year before. The forest and land use sector in Indonesia is expected to be the largest contributor to its emissions reduction, accounting for a 25.4% reduction in overall emissions from the baseline figure or 729 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The second largest is set to be the energy sector, accounting for a 15.5% reduction, or 446 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, followed by waste at 1.5%, agriculture at 0.4%, and industries at 0.3%. Indonesia presented this enhanced NDC as a transition towards the country’s second NDC, which will be aligned with Indonesia’s Long-Term Low Carbon and Climate Resilience Strategy to 2050, with a target to achieve net- zero emission by 2060 or sooner. As Indonesia’s unconditional target of 31.89% NDC has been dispersed to five key sectors, including forestry and other land uses, energy, waste, industry, and agriculture, Indonesia needs to carry out more ambitious mitigation in order to achieve significant emission reductions, particularly in sectors that were largest emitters: the energy sector and the forest sector, as well as land use. The two main objectives of the study are: first, to provide recommendations to public authorities at national, provincial and district levels on how to govern net zero transitions both top-down and bottom- up in such a way that vulnerable groups and regions actively engage and benefit. Second, to contribute to the scientific debate on policy and governance entrepreneurs, based on a comparative analysis of sub- national authorities in governing net-zero transition. Please find me in the research proposal