January 10, 2026 | 10:04 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In the government's imagination, the carbon trading business resembles the trade in semi-precious stones: mined, polished, then laid out for sale. As if simply opening forest restoration concessions and overhauling regulations would automatically draw in carbon buyers. That wide-eyed optimism was on display when the government promoted the national carbon exchange at the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belem, Brazil, in early November 2025.
That naivete was reflected in slogans about uncertified carbon stocks totaling 50 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) since 2021. The Indonesian delegation even boasted that the country possessed millions of carbon credits recorded before 2020. By the government's estimate, their economic value reached about Rp15 trillion to Rp16 trillion (around US$900-960 million).
Those claims prompted laughter among businesspeople, industry associations, and carbon consultants. They instead worried that the government's commitment amounted to little more than momentary hype. They questioned, for instance, the trillions-of-rupiah claim because emitters typically seek the most recent carbon credits to offset current-year emissions. From a business perspective, vintage or older-year carbon credits are far less attractive.
Indeed, at the global gathering, the government managed to trade only 1.5 million tons of CO2e in carbon credits from the forestry and other land use (FOLU) sector. Even that figure, when scrutinized, came from cumulative transactions recorded by IDXCarbon since its launch in September 2023 through August 2025. Most buyers were domestic entities whose identities were not disclosed to the public—an oddity in a business world that hinges on the integrity of emissions reductions.
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