Indonesians back a carbon tax more than almost all their neighbours

Every year the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore asks Southeast Asians what they think about climate change, and this year's answers are worth an Indonesian reader's attention. The 2026 round, written up on Fulcrum by Sharon Seah, polled 3,706 people across 11 countries over five weeks in June and July. Across the region, economic worries such as unemployment and recession came first at 55.3 per cent, with climate change and extreme weather just behind at 53.6 per cent. In Indonesia, jobs clearly outranked climate anxiety. That was the mood even after the UN Environment Programme reported in early September that the world is now set to pass 1.5 degrees of warming, the limit 194 governments agreed to avoid.

The surprise is what people say they will accept. A carbon tax is a charge on burning coal, oil and gas, which pushes up the price of dirty energy so cleaner power can compete. Support for one reached 72.8 per cent in Indonesia, above the regional average of 62 per cent and second only to Vietnam. Asked whether they would carry some of the cost themselves, 93.1 per cent of all respondents said yes, with better-off people readier to pay than poorer ones. For the first time in the survey's history, more than half wanted governments to act decisively against coal, either stopping it now or switching fuels and closing existing plants.

What people will not accept is being left exposed. Only 41 per cent supported cutting fossil fuel subsidies, down from 43.8 per cent in 2024, and the fears about the energy switch are about household money: cost of living at 44.6 per cent and energy shortages at 26.1 per cent, with this year's closure of the Strait of Hormuz still fresh. The gap between willingness and reality is wide. Renewable energy still supplies only 15.6 per cent of the region's primary energy, and the barriers people named most were money and missing technical expertise rather than any shortage of political support.

Why it matters

A carbon tax shows up on electricity and fuel bills before it shows up anywhere else, which is why the question about sharing the cost matters more than the headline support. If you pay a monthly PLN bill or run a small business on diesel, the detail to watch is how any charge is split between households and the industries that burn the most. Seah's wider point is that this much public support gives governments room to argue openly about the trade-offs instead of avoiding them.