The pursuit of greenness: explaining low-carbon urban transformation in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Despite the limited efforts of Indonesian cities and urban areas to overcome high production of greenhouse gas emissions, Balikpapan and Palembang are two cities that have demonstrated intriguing efforts to reduce such emissions. This paper aims to add to the scientific literature regarding the recent progress of low-carbon transformation in developing countries. The paper identifies the drivers of low-carbon planning and development and the extent to which such drivers can influence the success of low-carbon agendas. Four perspectives of analysis are adopted and tested using Balikpapan and Palembang as study cases: (1) public policy, (2) collaboration, (3) infrastructure and (4) knowledge creation and utilization. This study offers critical discussion regarding the adoption of the four perspectives as an integrated analysis to explain the complexity of low-carbon urban transformation.

KEYWORDS:

• Low carbon
• urban development
• Palembang City
• Balikpapan City
• four aspects

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.