India leads in CDM deals

India has emerged as frontrunner in taking up clean development mechanism (CDM) projects for emission reduction and increasing energy efficiency under the guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol.

As many as 200 CDM projects, taken up by various Indian companies, are under different stages of implementation while 35 have already received government approval, K P Nyati, head (environment management division), Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), said.

Indian companies, which had bagged CDM project contracts worth $ 235 million at the climate technology bazaar in New Delhi last year, now had the highest number of CDM projects submitted to the CDM executive board.

Tara Preston, a member of the CDM EB and deputy director CDM and joint implementation (JI) office of Canadian government, said even as Indian industry had taken up significant number of such projects, there was still requirement to spread awareness about the mechanism charted out under the Protocol to reduce global emissions.

The CDM EB is an international body formed for developing rules, procedures for and supervising CDM, which is one of the three mechanisms charted out under the Protocol to help developed countries meet targets of reducing emission of greenhouse gases by 5.2 per cent by the year 2012.

Under the CDM mechanism, a developed country can 'outsource' emission reduction from a developing country by paying a certain amount.