TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati stated that the world was facing two biggest challenges that will not only affect the economy, but also the population.

“First is the Covid-19 pandemic and the second is climate change,” she said in a video conference on Monday, November 2, 2020. The two threats, Sri added, are equally important for the government to address.

To contain the pandemic, Sri claimed the government had taken various policies in the health, social, economic, and financial sectors. The social protection for the poor had also been increased.

“We keep supporting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) including entrepreneurs too because they are all affected by Covid-19,” she added.

Meanwhile, in dealing with climate change, Indonesia was committed to reducing carbon dioxide through various policies. For example, the use of renewable energy which was targeted to reach 23 percent or 45 gigawatts in the 2020 National Energy Mix program.

However, the share of renewable energy in the primary energy mix in 2019 was only 9.15 percent. Meanwhile, it was 11 percent of total electrification in 2019.

“So this is our big challenge to achieve a 23 percent share of the renewable energy in our national energy mix. Indonesia does not lack potential. We have renewable energy potential of up to 442 gigawatts, but we now only use 10.4 gigawatts or 2.4 percent,” said Sri Mulyani.

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CAESAR AKBAR