An Indonesian environment agency has set out a roadmap for the government to adopt forestry, energy, transport, industrial and agriculture policies that would slash carbon emissions by the world’s No. 3 emitter.

Indonesia’s government-backed National Climate Change Council, or NCCC, said significant cuts in emissions could be made through efforts to conserve forests and peatlands, among its top recommendations in a report published this week ahead of the key climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

The Indonesian agency said forestry, agriculture, power, transportation, buildings, and cement account for most of Indonesia’s emissions, which it put at 2.3GT of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2005 – or 10 tonnes per Indonesian—and forecast would reach 2.8GT in 2020 and 3.6GT by 2030.

But Indonesia could potentially reduce emissions by as much as 2.3GT of carbon dioxide equivalents by 2030, the NCCC said, with the adoption of 150 different programmes, in effect bringing the level down to 1.3GT.

Most of the reduction needs to be focused on the forestry, peatland and agriculture sectors, where there is the greatest potential to cut emissions resulting from deforestation, forest fires, drainage of peatlands, and rice cultivation, the NCCC report showed.

It recommended a halt to deforestation coupled with more active reforestation programmes, as well as turning forests into carbon sinks, and better water and nutrient management in agriculture.