Addressing the need for decarbonization accountability, this study aims to investigate what drives disclosure by Indonesian provincial governments. We assess whether reporting reflects proactive governance or is a reactive tool for managing legitimacy in a complex context where national climate ambitions meet intense local pressures.
A custom disclosure index based on Indonesia's national decarbonization regulation (Perpres No. 98/2021) was applied via manual content analysis to 180 official reports from 30 provinces (2018–2023). A three-model panel data strategy, including two-way fixed-effects and Mundlak/CRE models, was then employed to analyze how socio-environmental, economic and governance factors shape provincial government accountability.
The analysis reveals that disclosure is a practice of “reactive legitimacy.” It is strongly and positively driven by a province's economic capacity. The introduction of the national decarbonization regulation and the level of socio-environmental conflict both show a marginally significant positive influence. Conversely, proactive drivers, such as organized stakeholder pressure and a region's ecological capacity for carbon sequestration, were not found to be significant. This pattern indicates a critical “accountability gap” between national policy intent and local implementation.
This study provides the first multi-level analysis of decarbonization disclosure in the under-researched local government context in the global south. It offers empirical evidence of an “accountability gap” between symbolic, compliance-oriented reporting and the substantive accountability required for effective climate governance, offering valuable insights into both accountability theory and actionable policy recommendations.
