UI Anthropologist Highlights the Dark Side of the Energy Transition

The energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy does not always yield positive outcomes. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change also contain gaps that can be exploited by certain actors.

Geger Riyanto, an anthropologist at Universitas Indonesia (UI), explains that global efforts to deliver the energy transition create funding that did not exist before. There are now many funding programmes specifically aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Some industries, such as banking, are urged to participate in decarbonisation, including halting or reducing financing for fossil-fuel power plants such as coal-fired plants. However, not all power plants have the same environmental impact.

Hydroelectric Power Plants (PLTA), for example, which in the 1980s were seen as a solution to supply electricity to remote areas, were previously abandoned because their effects were deemed harmful to communities living along riverbanks near dam projects. Yet PLTA is now again regarded as a low-emission electricity generation solution.

Nevertheless, the issues arising for communities around PLTA projects are still broadly similar. Based on Geger’s investigations, there are several elites who use the energy transition issue to secure funding, such as for building PLTA.

“Acoal is considered problematic; we need to finance the energy transition, but then where does that money go? Eventually such funds can be exploited by elites. For instance, one elite’s company, not to be named, owns a subsidiary that is now running a PLTA in Kalimantan. So this company is essentially a coal-holding, but then it creates a small company directing towards PLTA,” Geger told Republika, on Wednesday 3 March 2026.

Geger notes that the World Bank is involved in joint-funding for the Upper Cisokan Hydroelectric Plant project with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) amounting to 380 million USD. The PLTA owned by PLN (Persero) in West Java is one example of a project attracting investment funds or low-interest loans.

“If there is no funding for the PLTA in Kalimantan, it could be directed, for example, to Danantara. Because Danantara, if in line with the energy resilience vision of President Prabowo, is likely to view that PLTA as important. So more or less, the energy transition moves people and mobilises resources, and ultimately these resources are utilised by elites. Usually, those taking external funding such as loans at low interest are the ones who benefit,” he said.