Data-Driven Analysis of Carbon Emissions and the Development of Renewable Energy in Indonesia
Main
Ali Mashudi*
Indonesia’s reliance on fossil fuels, despite its 2060 net-zero commitment, highlights the need for empirical evidence on how its renewable energy transition relates to emissions. This quantitative descriptive study uses publicly available secondary data to examine (1) renewable energy consumption trends, (2) per capita CO2 emission trends, (3) the pattern of change in both indicators over time, and (4) the statistical relationship between them. Renewable energy consumption (% of total final energy consumption) was obtained from the World Bank World Development Indicators / Tracking SDG7 database, and per capita CO2 emissions (metric tons) from the Global Carbon Project dataset compiled by Our World in Data, for the 2014-2021 period, the longest period in which both indicators are available consistently by methodology. Descriptive statistics, trend analysis, percentage change analysis, Pearson correlation, and exploratory simple linear regression were applied. Renewable energy consumption fell from 29.3% in 2014 to 20.2% in 2021 (a decline of about 31%), while per capita CO2 emissions rose from 1.98 to 2.27 metric tons (an increase of about 15%). A strong and statistically significant negative correlation was found between the two series (r = -0.96, R2 = 0.91, p < 0.01). During the 2014-2021 period, the decline in Indonesia’s renewable energy share was strongly associated with the increase in per capita CO2 emissions; because the design is observational, this relationship should be read as a statistical relationship and not as causal evidence.
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