Indonesian environment minister urged rich nations to keep their commitments to help finance climate-change mitigation in developing countries amid the on-going financial crisis.

"There is no excuse for not mitigating climate change," the Jakarta Post daily on Wednesday quoted Rachmat Witoelar as saying.

Developed nations should differentiate between budgets to bail out financial institutions and funds allocated to mitigate climate change, the minister said on Tuesday.

Many developed nations, including the United States and European nations, were attempting to renege on emission-reduction commitments by using the economic downturn as an excuse, said the minister who is also president of the UN's conference of parties on climate change.

Last year, negotiators from 190 countries meeting in Bali agreed to take serious action to cut emissions of carbon, the main contributor to climate change, with industrialized nations promising to take the lead.

The Bali road map will not be effective unless rich nations committed to finance mitigation in developing nations, he said.

World leaders are expected to reach a new deal on emissions cuts when they meet in Copenhagen in 2009, to replace obligations agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The Kyoto Protocol requires developed nations to cut emissions by 5 percent from their 1990 levels. The US, however, refused to be bound by the protocol.

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2008)