Does decarbonization undermine carbon-resource reliant peace? Exploring the resilience of Aceh and Papua’s contrasting predatory peace settlements

Abstract

In some of the most contested and violence-affected areas of the world, carbon resource rents underpin fragile peace arrangements. But as global pressures to decarbonize intensify, the effects of removing carbon resource rents on these peace deals remain poorly understood. This article makes a new contribution to the emerging scholarship on the relationship between peacebuilding and decarbonization via a comparative case study from Indonesia. We explore the post-war political settlements in the Aceh and Papua regions, where natural resource governance reforms have underpinned contrasting approaches to ‘peace’. In both sites, political stability has relied on local elite access to carbon resource rents via predatory peace arrangements. In the Aceh region, the peace settlement was formally negotiated and included important reforms. It has remained resilient through rapid decarbonization, with alternative revenue sources accessible to the local elite. In the Papua region, conflict was managed via an informal securitized settlement, which has stayed relatively stable, although it remains untested by decarbonization. Overall, we find that predatory peace settlements reliant on carbon revenue resource sharing among local elites can be resilient to decarbonization with relevant mitigation and political reform measures in place. However, without these measures, stability appears conditional on repressive security measures.