Jakarta Workshop

Photo by Blunimo Digital on Unsplash

---

Advancing Just and Equitable Energy Transitions:

Legal, Policy and Financial Dimensions for Developing Countries

9 – 11 February 2026

Jakarta, Indonesia

---

Background

The global shift towards low-carbon energy systems is essential to meet climate obligations under the multilateral climate regime of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Paris Agreement. The urgency to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through decarbonization of energy sources and to adapt energy systems to a rapidly warming world requires broad and deep systemic change at local, national and international levels.

Energy transitions are not merely a shift in energy resources but a fundamental structural transformation across all facets of social and economic life. Transitions that are uneven, implemented in a fragmented manner and embedded within historical and contemporary social, economic and geopolitical asymmetries risk being disorderly and destabilising as well as entrenching pre-existing socio-economic inequalities within and among countries.

For developing countries, the challenges of achieving a just energy transition are especially acute. Faced with an ever-multiplying constellation of internal and external pressures, including higher levels of poverty and challenges of sustainable development, limited domestic resources and fiscal constraints, liquidity and sovereign debt crises, persistent trade imbalances, vulnerability to price shocks of food and other essential commodities and lack of access to affordable and sustainable sources of energy, developing countries face a disproportionately higher financial, social and economic cost of energy transition.

At the same time, the cost of inaction on decarbonisation and climate resilience will also be disproportionately higher for developing countries as disorderly and uneven transitions can lead to disruptions in energy supply, stranded assets, economic stagnation, dislocated production and supply chains, environmental degradation, and the displacement of workers and communities. Additionally, due to existing financial, economic and geopolitical hierarchies, developing countries risk becoming sites of green extraction in the global green transition as both repositories of critical minerals and laboratories of experimentation for global arms race for green technologies.

Current legal, policy and regulatory debates on just energy transition highlight the complexity of balancing climate goals with urgent sustainable development priorities in developing countries, conducted within the backdrop of geopolitical and economic uncertainty, ongoing war, genocide, and militarisation, and the impacts of continuing natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Developing countries urgently require just and equitable energy transitions that balance climate imperatives with social equity, economic development, financial stability and debt sustainability. A corollary of this imperative is the impetus to meet the scale of finance required for energy transitions and to develop equitable, inclusive and appropriate policies and regulatory frameworks to enable such transitions.

Workshop Rationale and Objectives

This workshop will bring together academics, civil society groups, policymakers, practitioners and other experts to discuss and debate the legal, policy and financial dimensions of just and equitable energy transitions in developing countries. The aim is to progress our understanding of the intertwined legal, policy, financial, and socio-economic dimensions of the just energy transition in developing countries. It will critically examine the national and international frameworks that enable or disable just and equitable energy transitions nationally and transnationally, including the discrete and intersecting roles of the multilateral climate regime, financial institutions and instruments of climate finance, trade and investment law, sovereign debt dynamics and the international financial architecture, and the governance of global supply chains.

The workshop will explore key policy and regulatory issues relating to just energy transitions, such as financing clean energy investments and ensuring access to sustainable energy sources, the development and implementation of green industrial policies, the impact of unilateral trade measures (such as the European Union (EU)’s carbon border adjustment measure (CBAM)), the development of market-based climate mitigation and financing measures, such as carbon markets and climate-related debt instruments, promotion of domestic mobilisation of resources for energy transition, the deployment of green industrial policies and the safeguarding of labour and other human rights and environmental protection during the structural transformation of energy transition.

Key objectives of the workshop include the strengthening of knowledge exchange and expertise and building capacity among delegates from developed and developing countries engaged in academic research and policy development and advocacy on issues relating to just energy transitions in the global south. We aim to establish a network on just energy transitions to act as knowledge and advocacy infrastructure and to build collective expertise to shape national energy transition plans and global frameworks on fair climate finance, and inclusive, plural multilateralism on climate finance and energy transitions. 

Workshop Format

This invitation-only workshop will take place in person over three days at the offices of the Centre for Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), Jakarta, Indonesia. It will be comprised of plenary and panel discussions and roundtables as well as informal networking sessions for participants to build research, policy and advocacy links for future collaborations. Participants will be given the opportunity to showcase work undertaken on just energy transitions in their institutions and countries and present case studies of research and policy and advocacy work as well as practical operationalisation of just energy transition policies, programmes and projects.

This workshop is organised by: