<![CDATA[Indonesia is developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) regulation while simultaneously pursuing renewable electricity, carbon-market instruments, and continued natural-gas investment. The interaction among these choices is often described as complementary, but complementarity depends on sequencing, sectoral fit, methane control, and credible limits on fossil-fuel lock-in. This narrative review synthesizes international evidence on CCS performance, storage security, costs, residual emissions, and methane with Indonesia’s evolving legal architecture. CCS has a defensible role in hard-to-abate industrial processes and in managing concentrated carbon-dioxide streams where low-carbon substitutes remain limited. Its case is weaker when used to prolong inefficient power assets or delay available renewable and efficiency options. Natural gas can have lower life-cycle emissions than coal, yet its transitional value is conditional on low methane intensity, limited asset lifetime, operational flexibility, and consistency with declining carbon budgets. Indonesia’s Presidential Regulation No. 14/2024, Ministerial Regulations No. 2/2023 and No. 16/2024, renewable-power framework, and Presidential Regulation No. 110/2025 create important legal foundations. Nevertheless, bankable and socially legitimate deployment requires clearer source–sink planning, measurement and verification, long-term storage liability, methane standards, financial additionality, community participation, and rules preventing double counting. The review proposes a sequenced governance hierarchy: prioritize efficiency and renewable electricity; constrain gas to time-bound system functions; and allocate CCS to residual industrial emissions under high capture, monitoring, and liability standards. Regulatory credibility, rather than technological optimism alone, will determine whether CCS accelerates decarbonization or locks in fossil dependence.]]>
