Interacting with a seven-member French delegation led by Mr JeanYues Le Deaut, here on a fact-finding mission related to greenhouse effects, the minister of state for environment & forests, Mr Namo Narain Meena, informed them about India’s commitment to the United Nations Climate Change Convention and Kyoto Protocol.

During the discussion, the environment and forests secretary, Dr Prodipto Ghosh, said the CDM mechanism should be strengthened, and the high transaction costs involved for processing and registration of the projects should be reduced to enable small and medium scale projects join the CDM mechanism.

“Programmatic CDM should also be encouraged and nuclear energy, at present not considered under CDM, should be included as this is one of the cleanest source of energy,” Dr Ghosh said.

The EU Emission-Trading Scheme (EU-ETS), he noted, had some barriers like caps on CERs, reservation of large hydro projects and sinks and stressed on the need to address these issues to facilitate healthy development of CDM markets.

The French delegation in their turn observed that they were in agreement with inclusion of carbon sinks and nuclear energy in the EU-ETS.

They also agreed that research and transfer of technology should be encouraged to fight against Climate Change, the greatest threat to humanity.

The French were also interested to know the measures taken by India on the transportation as well housing sector to reduce green house gas emissions.

Dr Ghosh, while informing the proactive measures undertaken by India in recent years welcomed French initiative in these areas through the route of CDM.

Both sides decided to further explore the possibilities of strengthening cooperation in the areas of climate change and cleaner environmental technologies.