Under Article 8 of the Minamata Convention, Indonesia must evaluate its emissions to establish a baseline. It must then create a national action plan which includes a strategy to reduce emissions from the coal sector. To achieve this, like all ratified parties, Indonesia must quantify mercury emissions and then identify the best techniques and technologies to reduce these emissions. Article 8 also states that parties shall adopt guidance on the methodology for preparing emission inventories.

The methodology for creating an inventory for each sector (including coal) is outlined under the Convention, including the requirements for the collation and handling of data to create a database which will form the basis of any compliance strategy. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) approach works best for sectors where emissions of mercury are already monitored regularly. This is not currently the case for the coal sector in many countries, including Indonesia.

In the absence of actual measured emission data, the Convention advises on how to create a sectoral mercury emissions inventory based on generic emission factors for mercury. This approach uses what the Convention defines as ‘inventory level 1’ calculations, which require the application of a single emission factor for each coal type to all plants. However, the Convention also promotes the use of ‘inventory level 2’ calculations, based on significantly more coal and plant-specific data.

The ICSC has previously (2017) worked with UNEP, and Basel and Rotterdam Conventions Regional Centre for Asia (BCRC-Asia) to produce a baseline emission inventory for the Indonesian coal fleet based on an improved emission factor derived from real measurements and mass balances. The new work, however, went further by estimating mercury emissions from the entire Indonesian coal fleet on a unit-by-unit basis.

This was achieved by inputting plant and coal-specific data into the interactive Process Optimisation Guidance (iPOG) tool to create inventory level 2 emission factors, as mentioned above. The tool and its operating guidelines can be downloaded free from here.

To help Indonesia comply with the Minamata Convention, the ICSC-USDOS project in Indonesia has been divided into three phases of work:

• Phase 1 – to create a mercury emission inventory for the Indonesian coal fleet and to present these results at a stakeholder workshop. Phase 1 was completed at the beginning of 2021 and the results can be accessed here
• Phase 2 – to work with Indonesian stakeholders to identify and focus on three example units to identify several options for cost-effective mercury reduction. This will be presented as a ’Catalogue of compliance strategies‘. This work is ongoing and updates are provided here
• Phase 3 – to deliver the Catalogue of compliance strategies to the Indonesian government ministries at a high-level event which will include training and capacity building, which will take place in Jakarta 11-13 July 2023. This work is ongoing, and updates are provided here

The ICSC team is working closely with BCRC-Asia, as well as the Indonesian Ministry of the Environment and Forestry (MOEF) and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR).

These stakeholders have adopted the inventory produced under this work as the baseline for determining Indonesia’s compliance strategy for the coal sector under the Minamata Convention.