13 Climate Budget Tagging: Amplifying Sub-National Government’s …
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In line with the above-mentioned plans, the Ministry of Finance through its
Center for Climate Finance and Multilateral Policy launched the Green Planning
and Budgeting Strategy for Sustainable Development that further details key priority
areas in which policy and public investment can help in mitigating climate change—
and to cope with the risks of loss and damage to natural resources. There are 21 top
practical focuses clustered in six policy areas highlighted in the document that enable
a smooth shift toward a green economy, which in turn maintains the economic growth
(MoF 2015). Formal endorsement to a low carbon development plan, which aims at
protecting the environment from business-as-usual practices, has slowly become a
norm at the national level.
The national government has required each province to set emission reduction
targets within the framework of their regional action plans through the issuance
of Governor Regulation. Proportionately, provinces thus need their districts to also
collectively address the issues. The existing climate and environmental governance
in Indonesia mimics multilateral climate governance, where contributions are configured by sub-national governments, accompanied with an effort by the national
government to monitor and verify them. In this light, the sub-national government
plays an instrumental role, given the nature of the environmental problem that originates from processes that are embedded in specific provincial areas (Betsill and
Bulkeley 2006). The success of multilevel governance setting of climate governance
hence depends largely on the policy implementation at the sub-national level.
The climate action plan issued by each province in Indonesia will only be meaningful if it is clearly integrated into their development agenda. The accountability
of the commitment should then be reflected on budget availability to execute the
plans. Ultimately, financing is an elemental enabler of many of climate actions. This
paper examines planning and budgeting dynamics at the sub-national level through
the lens of climate budget tagging (CBT). CBT offers a framework to understand
how planning and budgeting correlate to monitoring and tracking of climate-related
expenditures in the budgetary system (Ellis and Moarif 2017; Kissinger et al. 2019;
Resch et al. 2017; UNDP 2015). The tool has been widely advocated for in the
context of GoI in hope to comprehend relevant climate change spending that allows
the government to make informed decisions on climate investments, as well as to
strengthen the transparency of public budget use.
This study aims at addressing the main research question: Given the authority and
responsibility to reach climate targets, what lessons can be learnt from sub-national
governments in mainstreaming climate actions into the development agenda? The
question can also be elaborated into several further questions that this study discusses:
referring to the case studies, how is the quantity and quality of climate planning
and budgeting at sub-national level? what can be done to improve the efficacy
of resource use in achieving climate targets at the sub-national level? The rest of
the study is organized as follows: Section “Methodology” discusses the framework
and methodology of understanding the planning and budgeting at the sub-national
level. Section “Results” presents the case studies and actual findings on the ground.
Section “Discussion” highlights the analysis of the results laid out in the previous
267
In line with the above-mentioned plans, the Ministry of Finance through its
Center for Climate Finance and Multilateral Policy launched the Green Planning
and Budgeting Strategy for Sustainable Development that further details key priority
areas in which policy and public investment can help in mitigating climate change—
and to cope with the risks of loss and damage to natural resources. There are 21 top
practical focuses clustered in six policy areas highlighted in the document that enable
a smooth shift toward a green economy, which in turn maintains the economic growth
(MoF 2015). Formal endorsement to a low carbon development plan, which aims at
protecting the environment from business-as-usual practices, has slowly become a
norm at the national level.
The national government has required each province to set emission reduction
targets within the framework of their regional action plans through the issuance
of Governor Regulation. Proportionately, provinces thus need their districts to also
collectively address the issues. The existing climate and environmental governance
in Indonesia mimics multilateral climate governance, where contributions are configured by sub-national governments, accompanied with an effort by the national
government to monitor and verify them. In this light, the sub-national government
plays an instrumental role, given the nature of the environmental problem that originates from processes that are embedded in specific provincial areas (Betsill and
Bulkeley 2006). The success of multilevel governance setting of climate governance
hence depends largely on the policy implementation at the sub-national level.
The climate action plan issued by each province in Indonesia will only be meaningful if it is clearly integrated into their development agenda. The accountability
of the commitment should then be reflected on budget availability to execute the
plans. Ultimately, financing is an elemental enabler of many of climate actions. This
paper examines planning and budgeting dynamics at the sub-national level through
the lens of climate budget tagging (CBT). CBT offers a framework to understand
how planning and budgeting correlate to monitoring and tracking of climate-related
expenditures in the budgetary system (Ellis and Moarif 2017; Kissinger et al. 2019;
Resch et al. 2017; UNDP 2015). The tool has been widely advocated for in the
context of GoI in hope to comprehend relevant climate change spending that allows
the government to make informed decisions on climate investments, as well as to
strengthen the transparency of public budget use.
This study aims at addressing the main research question: Given the authority and
responsibility to reach climate targets, what lessons can be learnt from sub-national
governments in mainstreaming climate actions into the development agenda? The
question can also be elaborated into several further questions that this study discusses:
referring to the case studies, how is the quantity and quality of climate planning
and budgeting at sub-national level? what can be done to improve the efficacy
of resource use in achieving climate targets at the sub-national level? The rest of
the study is organized as follows: Section “Methodology” discusses the framework
and methodology of understanding the planning and budgeting at the sub-national
level. Section “Results” presents the case studies and actual findings on the ground.
Section “Discussion” highlights the analysis of the results laid out in the previous