Norway on Tuesday urged other countries to support Indonesia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions following its commitment of up to 1 billion U.S. dollars for the country for the purpose, a press statement said in Jakarta.

"Norway is proud of the partnership with Indonesia. We strongly encourage other countries to support the work that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the government of Indonesia is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Norwegian Minister for the Environment and International Development Erik Solheim said in a conference.

He praised President Yudhoyono's efforts to materialize the goal.

"President Yudhoyono is now one of the foremost statesmen leading the international fight to combat climate change," he said

It is predicted that up to 30 billion dollars could flow from developed to developing countries each year to help facilitate significant reductions in deforestation, and Indonesia could potentially claim a significant share of these funds through REDD+, a global mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, as well as the conservation and sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

British Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Jim Paice said that his country supports Indonesia's work to meet its internationals climate change commitments.

"I am pleased to be here at the Forests Indonesia Conference because the UK recognizes the importance of climate change in Indonesia. We are pleased to be supporting the government of Indonesia's work to meet its internationals climate change commitments," said Paice.

Hosted by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) , the conference provided a platform for 1,000 leaders of Indonesia's government, business community and civil society, as well as foreign donors, to discuss the future of the forests, the third-largest tropical forest in the world.

Indonesia is losing about 1.1 million hectares of its forests each year. Most of it is due to unsustainable logging that includes the conversion of forests to plantations for palm oil and the pulp and paper industry. It is also partly due to large-scale illegal logging, which is estimated to cost Indonesia about 4 billion dollars annually.

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