Forest and land fires (karhutla) throughout 2026 have once again become a major source of emissions. WALHI has calculated the emissions generated by these fires. Its estimate of emissions from vegetation burned between January and early September 2026 reached approximately 31 million tons of CO2. Emissions from the fires are equivalent to nearly all of Cuba’s annual greenhouse gas emissions—a country with a population of approximately 11.3 million people—including its entire energy, transportation, industrial, and agricultural sectors for a full year.

Meanwhile, based on heat detections from the Copernicus satellite system, emissions from forest and land fires were much higher, reaching 65.18 Mt C, equivalent to approximately 239 million tons of CO2. This means that 239 million tons of CO2 is equivalent to Kazakhstan’s total annual fossil-fuel emissions, including coal-fired power generation, industry, transportation, and all other economic activities in the country for an entire year.

“The scale of these emissions highlights a serious contradiction in Indonesia’s climate commitment through FOLU Net Sink 2030. The government has set a target for the forestry and other land-use (FOLU) sector to absorb more emissions than it releases by 2030. However, when forests, land, and peatlands continue to burn, the carbon that should remain stored is instead released back into the atmosphere,” said Patria Rizky Ananda, WALHI’s Climate and Global Issues Campaigner, as quoted on Wednesday, September 9, 2026.

Patria also questioned how Indonesia can achieve FOLU Net Sink if tens to hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 continue to be released by forest and land fires at the same time.

“Every fire means that carbon that should be stored within ecosystems is released back into the atmosphere. This is not merely a matter of firefighting, but a matter of the credibility of Indonesia’s climate commitments,” she said.

FOLU Net Sink 2030 is targeted to be achieved through a number of interventions, including reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, increasing carbon sequestration, and reducing emissions from peat fires and peat decomposition. However, the recurrence of forest and land fires shows that one of the FOLU sector’s major sources of emissions has yet to be brought under control.

“In fact, FOLU has essentially been a failure since it was formulated. The logic of FOLU, which still provides large quotas for converting forests into business concessions, is correlated with the forest and land fires that continue to occur. Referring, for example, to SiPongi+ data, CO2 emissions from forest and land fires stood at 53,527,407 tons of CO2 in 2024 and then increased to 56,204,535 tons of CO2 in 2025. That means emissions increased by approximately 2.7 million tons of CO2 in a single year. This condition demonstrates a fundamental contradiction: the government is targeting increased carbon sequestration but has not succeeded in stopping carbon emissions from the same ecosystems,” said Uli Arta Siagian, Campaign Coordinator at WALHI National.

For WALHI, forest and land fires must be treated as a central issue in Indonesia’s climate policy. The government must ensure that prevention measures are based on risk, particularly in peat ecosystems and areas that have repeatedly burned, while also ending governance practices that make carbon-storing areas increasingly vulnerable to fires. Peatland protection and restoration must be placed at the core of the FOLU strategy, rather than being treated merely as an agenda once fires have already occurred.

At the same time, the government must strengthen oversight of concessions and enforce the law against corporations proven to have caused or allowed forest and land fires to occur. Integrating climate policy with spatial planning and licensing is also essential to ensure that land-use policies do not instead generate emissions that contradict the FOLU Net Sink target. These efforts must go hand in hand with strengthening the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting and restoring ecosystems vulnerable to fire.

“Success in achieving FOLU Net Sink 2030 should not be measured solely by how much carbon is claimed to have been absorbed, but also by how effectively the government is able to stop the carbon that continues to be released,” Patria added.

“The 2026 forest and land fires show that this work is not yet finished. As long as forests and peatlands continue to burn, millions of tons of emissions continue to be released, and the sources of those emissions are not stopped, Indonesia’s commitment to FOLU Net Sink 2030 should be questioned. Indonesia cannot claim to be moving toward a net sink while allowing carbon-storing ecosystems to continue becoming sources of emissions,” Uli concluded.