Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono during a meeting in Jakarta. With Indonesia and the U.S. being the world’s second and third largest greenhouse gas emitters, members of Greenpeace rallied outside the presidential palace during the meeting to bring attention to reducing emissions.

“We call on the US leadership to handle the issue of climate change seriously and we ask developed countries like the US to provide funds to countries like Indonesia to save their forests and support their efforts to reduce emissions,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said.

For Indonesia, forest-clearing is the main cause of emissions and Clinton told Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda that she “applauded” Indonesian efforts to “integrate deforestation into the broader climate negotiations.”

However, Greenpeace maintains that the United States needs to have stratedgies in place that would offer countries financial incentives to stop deforestation and offer environmentally friendly development alternatives.

In Hillary Clinton’s her gig as Secretary of State, climate and energy will be high on the agenda. Thus, Clinton’s first trip will be to China, as well as a first stop to Japan, which is scheduled for later this month.

Clinton is taking cues from her boss, the newly-elected President Barack Obama to work with the industrializing giant on cilmate and energy issues.

Todd Stern, the newly created special envoy on climate change for the United States told the New York Times, “Secretary Clinton is keenly aware that the United States — as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases — and China — as the largest emitter going forward — need to develop a strong, constructive partnership to build the kind of clean energy economies that will allow us to put the brakes on global climate change. We need to put finger-pointing aside and focus on how our two leading nations can work together productively to solve the problem.”