The Indonesian government is committed to offset the carbon footprint for the United Nations (UN) climate change conference to a level of "carbon positive event," said a press release of the Indonesian delegation headed by Emil Salim on Wednesday.

It is estimated that the carbon footprint for the UN conference will be around 50,000 tons of CO2 equivalent, the press release said.

Carbon footprint is a measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of greenhouse gases produced. It is measured in units of carbon dioxide.

"We are offsetting the carbon footprint with several trees planting and timber plantation projects," the press release said.

The total forest plantation area for this offset is 4,500 hectares, with a total carbon stock of 900,000 tons of CO2 equivalent, it added.

The same amount of offset could be achieved through two days of Nyepi, or "Day of Silence" (New year day of Hindu Bali where people are fasting, and lighting fires, working, traveling, entertaining are restricted), it said.

Indonesia is currently hosting a two-week UN climate change conference, which kicked off here on Monday in a bid to drum up support for launching negotiations on a new climate change regime to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.

(Xinhua News Agency December 6, 2007)