Jakarta – Carbon tax will provide energy justice and level the field that thus far is unevenly tilted towards fossil energy that has been receiving government subsidies, activists said recently. Carbon tax that will be imposed in July 2022, is part of the government’s actions to achieve net zero emissions (NZE). It is hoped to encourage the use of new and renewable energy (NRE) and energy conservation in a broad and comprehensive manner by the community, universities, students, industry, research institutions, parliament, local governments and the media.
“So far, subsidies have been given to non-renewable energy such as fossil fuels which has resulted in inequality. Carbon tax or carbon pricing is imposed to achieve justice,” said Chairman of the Indonesian Renewable Energy Society (METI) Surya Darma in a hybrid discussion entitled Mitigation of Climate Change Through Carbon Taxes and Renewable Energy, Tuesday (7/6).
In the discussion held by the New Perspective Foundation, WALHI North Sumatra and the University of North Sumatra, Darma explained that carbon tax also regulates carbon trading in accordance with Presidential Decree No. 98/2021 on carbon pricing.
Ministry of Finance Fiscal Policy Agency analyst, Hadi Setiawan, said the carbon tax aims to change the behavior of economic actors so that they can switch to low-carbon green economic activities. In addition, the implementation of this regulation is also intended to support the target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the medium and long term.
“The awareness and role of the younger generation will be one of the success determinants of our joint efforts to control the impacts of climate change and achieve the NDC target by 2030 and the Net Zero Emission (NZE) target by 2060 or sooner,” he said. (Hartatik)
