Author
Mr Annas Akbar Sultansyah
Organisation/Institution
Monash University - Faculty of Business and Economics
Country
AUSTRALIA
Panel
Tax Law
Title
Tailoring Carbon Taxation in Asia’s Coal Economies: Doctrinal Pathways for Just and Sustainable Transition
Abstract
Carbon pricing is not one-size-fits-all. Asia exemplifies this diversity: some jurisdictions are major coal exporters, others are import-dependent, and all face distinct fiscal, legal, and political constraints. To contribute to the global discourse on carbon pricing law, Indonesia, as the world’s largest thermal coal exporter, offers a compelling case. An upstream carbon tax (UCT), imposed at the point of extraction, demonstrates how statutory design can be tailored to domestic context. By centralising liability, clarifying obligations, and earmarking revenues for socially visible purposes, UCT shows that carbon pricing law must be context-sensitive to deliver both sustainability and justice. This paper develops a doctrinal framework that connects statutory design choices to institutional outcomes of simplicity, transparency, and redistributive equity. Drawing on classical taxation principles, Pigouvian logic, and public law perspectives, the analysis reframes UCT not merely as a fiscal instrument but as a governance tool that strengthens legitimacy. By taxing entrenched rents at the source and allocating revenues to energy affordability initiatives, regional transition funds, and conditional support for renewables, UCT enhances perceptions of fairness and compliance in contexts where elite privilege and regulatory insulation are deeply embedded. Transitional clauses, including time-bound grandfathering and conditional green subsidies, further integrate incumbents into a forward-looking transition. The Indonesian case provides a lens for exploring how upstream liability can align with trade, investment, and regional integration while avoiding institutional fragilities of downstream regimes. More broadly, the paper argues that carbon pricing law must be tailored to domestic context and conceived as an integrated fiscal framework, linking revenue generation with rule‑bound expenditure to ensure that carbon revenues become instruments of equity and stewardship. This doctrinal orientation enriches global carbon governance beyond EU‑centric models, offering normative guidance for resource‑intensive economies seeking sustainable and just transitions.
Biography
Annas Akbar Sultansyah is a doctoral researcher in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University and a senior public servant with over seventeen years of experience at Indonesia’s Directorate General of Taxes, Ministry of Finance. His work centres on statutory tax design, the political economy of energy transition and carbon-pricing governance, and he has contributed to outreach and engagement initiatives under the Australian Political Studies Association (APSA). His research combines doctrinal legal analysis with empirical insights from in-depth interviews to examine how carbon taxation and fiscal governance can be adapted to domestic legal and institutional settings while remaining compatible with international trade and investment regimes. His doctoral project investigates upstream carbon taxation in resource-intensive economies, showing how statutory choices—particularly the levy point and revenue earmarking—shape the effectiveness and legitimacy of carbon pricing. A core focus of his work is the link between fiscal frameworks and energy transitions: he examines how well-designed carbon tax can redirect greater fiscal incentives, strengthen institutional capacity and finance transition priorities such as renewable deployment, regional adjustment and social protection. He is broadly interested in comparative legal design for sustainability and in developing context-sensitive fiscal architectures that support fair and durable energy transitions in Indonesia and other resource-dependent jurisdictions.
