The Kyoto deal, reached in 1997, asked 35 industrialised nations to step up investment in projects to cut greenhouse gas emission in developing countries under a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

"We had hoped for much larger foreign direct investment. We are disappointed by the scale of foreign technology under CDM," said Prodipto Ghosh, the top official in the ministry of forests and environment.

Ghosh was speaking during a two-day international conference on adaptation to climate change in New Delhi, where officials from the European Commission, World Bank and Britain's Department for International Development were to discuss strategies.

Experts say droughts, floods and cyclones resulting from climate change will hit farm-dependent economies and developing countries such as India hardest. Nearly 60 percent of India's workforce is employed in agriculture.

A new study in the journal Science last week said that a rise in the number and strength of "extreme" rain storms in central India could be linked to global warming.

Ghosh said the Indian government had set up an adaptation fund and made improvements in energy efficiency in key sectors such as power, steel and cement to avert climate change.

"But adaptation (to climate change) will require tens of billions of dollars a year," the official said.

In October, Britain released a landmark report on the economic implications of climate change and called for a global deal to cut carbon emissions within two years -- with India, China and the United States in the firing line.

India and China signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, but are not included in targeted emission cuts.

Kyoto requires industrialised countries to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent by a target of 2008-2012 compared with their 1990 levels.

Former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern said in October that climate change will cost up to 20 percent of global GDP if nothing was done to stem the trend.

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