Climate change has evolved from a purely environmental issue right into a multidimensional threat that touches security, economic and social dimensions. For Southeast Asia, a region surrounded by warm waters and boasting the longest coastline on the earth, the consequences of climate change are clearly not a future forecast but a gift reality.
Indonesia, because the world’s largest archipelagic country and a natural regional leader, ultimately faces high expectations and sophisticated challenges in implementing the regional climate and security agenda.
Rhetorically, Indonesia has shown significant leadership. President Joko Widodo’s commitment at COP26 to attain net zero emissions by 2060 or earlier, in addition to efforts to cut back deforestation, is commendable.
Indonesia has also been a key driver of regional initiatives resembling the establishment of the ASEAN Center on Climate Change and, previously, the ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change.
However, when rhetoric collides with the realities of domestic politics, tensions arise. Deforestation continues, although at a slower pace. Conversion of forests for palm oil and mining continues, and nickel flow policies increase emissions from coal-fired power plants.
This represents a structural contradiction: Indonesia strives to be a green leader, yet its domestic political economy stays highly depending on the extraction of carbon-intensive resources.
How does the speculation of diplomacy approach the issue?
Climate change in Southeast Asia is a fundamentally significant non-traditional security issue on account of its transboundary impacts, resembling sea level rise, extreme weather, and food chain disruption. From the perspective of diplomacy (IR), this problem is analyzed using several approaches:
From a practical perspective, Southeast Asian countries are likely to prioritize national interests and sovereignty. Responses to climate change are sometimes pragmatic, resembling infrastructure adaptation, but multilateral cooperation is hampered by trust deficits and competition for resources (e.g. water within the Mekong River). Non-traditional security is taken into account secondary to traditional military threats.
Meanwhile, the liberalist perspective emphasizes the necessity for institutional cooperation through ASEAN and mechanisms resembling the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution.
Liberals see climate change as a collective problem that may be solved through international regimes, technology transfer, and economic incentives resembling emissions trading. The role of non-state actors, including non-governmental organizations, scientists and communities, can also be necessary in promoting awareness and shaping policy.
On the opposite hand, the human security approach and important theory emphasize that the consequences of climate change, including floods, droughts and crop failures, cause social vulnerability, forced migration and social conflict, which then threaten regional stability.
Countries just like the Philippines and Vietnam are particularly vulnerable, making climate change resilience a difficulty of existential security.
Taken together, these perspectives show that climate change in Southeast Asia can’t be separated from power relations, the architecture of regional cooperation, and global climate justice. A non-traditional approach to security requires reforming ASEAN institutions and integrating climate threats into foreign policy, moving beyond technical adaptation towards preventive diplomacy.
A security program that is still incomplete
Moreover, from a security perspective, Indonesia’s approach to climate change stays benign, specializing in adaptation and technical mitigation facets. It has not yet clearly identified climate change as a non-traditional security threat throughout the ASEAN architecture.
However, empirical evidence shows that sea level rise threatens the existence of Indonesia’s small, outermost islands, which also constitute the boundaries of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia. The clashing of the Riau Islands and the potential sinking of islands within the Strait of Malacca will not be only environmental issues, but additionally problems with sovereignty.
Ironically, Indonesia doesn’t consistently raise climate issues as a security agenda in forums resembling the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and ADMM-Plus. As a result, the region’s response is sectoral, split between environmental declarations and defense cooperation.
Meanwhile, ASEAN’s existing climate security mechanisms are extremely weak. Initiatives resembling the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution (2002) function a bitter example.
Decades later, cross-border forest fires still occur every dry season within the absence of specific sanctions. Indonesia, because the country with probably the most hotspots within the region, could have pushed for strengthening this mechanism as a model for other climate security issues.
However, on account of the sensitivity of national sovereignty, Jakarta was reluctant to comply with more binding regional interventions. This is comprehensible, however the consequence is that the established order stays.
The gap between diplomacy and domestic politics
Indonesia’s foreign policy is commonly inconsistent with its domestic behavior. Although Indonesia has been a vocal advocate of climate justice on the UN and demands that developed countries meet their climate finance commitments, it stays one in all the world’s largest coal exporters.
Fossil fuel subsidies remain widespread and have only been partially reformed. If the country desires to play a reputable role in Southeast Asia, domestic reforms must run in parallel with external diplomacy. Without this, Indonesia will lose the moral legitimacy to criticize its neighbors for its slow transformation.
Indonesia must also play a policy integrator role between ASEAN and the worldwide climate architecture. So far, ASEAN’s relations with the UNFCCC have been lax. Indonesia could push for the establishment of a typical reporting mechanism or a typical ASEAN position on the COP.
Such efforts have been suboptimal on account of persistent sectoral divisions and differences in capabilities between Member States. Singapore and Vietnam are more progressive of their energy transition, while Myanmar and Laos still rely heavily on hydropower and coal.
Indonesia, which occupies the center ground, could act as a bridge, but it surely needs to maneuver beyond a “mutual respect” sort of diplomacy that always results in mentioning threats without concrete motion.
Towards an approach to human security
Finally, the approach to human safety should be prioritized. Climate change in Southeast Asia means not only the sinking of islands and crop failures, but additionally forced migration, conflicts over resources and the vulnerability of coastal communities.
In this context, Indonesia should lead in establishing a regional mechanism to counter climate refugees – a category not yet recognized in international law.
However, Indonesia’s record in helping Rohingya refugees (partly on account of environmental aspects) has not been encouraging. Without coherent humanitarian principles, Indonesia’s role will probably be partial.
In summary, Indonesia has significant leadership potential within the region, but is just not yet fully exploiting it. To turn out to be an efficient actor, Indonesia must resolve the interior contradictions between climate commitments and the implementation of extractive economic practices.
It must also boldly promote the climate change agenda as a core security agenda inside ASEAN, including by pushing for the establishment of an emergency response mechanism for cross-border disasters triggered by global climate change.
Finally, Indonesia must bridge the gap between environmental policy and security issues, which have largely been treated as separate areas until now. Without these steps, Indonesia’s contribution to addressing climate change and security challenges in Southeast Asia will remain only symbolic, not transformative.
