Xi Pledged in 2021 That China Would End Support Of Coal Overseas; 17 Units Planned Or Underway In Indonesia Alone
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Today, Chinese companies are continuing to build new coal plants in Indonesia, despite a 2021 pledge by China’s president, Xi Jinping, that Beijing would end such financing. Chinese entities were planning or building at least 17 generating units at nine coal-fired power plants across Indonesia as of July, according to the Inside Climate News analysis and other reporting. An additional 27 units under construction or in the planning stages had no known Chinese involvement. The new coal plants are coming at a time when climate change is already driving deadly extreme weather across the globe, and they could push Indonesia’s climate targets out of reach.
In an ironic twist, many of the new Chinese-backed coal plants are powering operations that Indonesian leaders say will help transition the world to cleaner energy. These so-called “captive” coal plants are not connected to the grid but instead serve as dedicated power sources for new industrial parks refining nickel, used in electric vehicle batteries, or manufacturing solar panel components. The projects are backed largely by private Chinese companies rather than state-owned enterprises, and their status as captive power plants appears to allow them to flow through a loophole in Xi’s 2021 pledge.
Beyond these captive plants in Indonesia, China has largely stuck to that promise—only a few other Chinese-backed coal units were newly planned last year, in Kyrgyzstan, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an independent research group based in Finland.
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Still, projects that had already been announced before Xi’s 2021 pledge continue to come online. As of last year, 52 Chinese-backed coal power plants were still planned or under construction globally, with more in Indonesia than any other country, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Together, these plants could emit more than 200 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, or about as much as all of Pakistan. Now, Indonesia and other nations that host Chinese-built coal fleets are grappling with how they can reduce their climate emissions while saddled with young power plants burning the most polluting fossil fuel. Indonesian officials say they are open to shutting their coal plants earlier than planned in order to limit climate pollution, but that closures cannot come at the expense of economic growth. Any costs of early retirement, Indonesian leaders say, must be paid by wealthy nations.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19102025/china-indonesia-coal-development-pollution/