British Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday accused countries of holding the UN climate summit to ransom as bitter recriminations swirled over the outcome of the negotiations.
Summit host Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen admitted leaders had been left with too much to do by their negotiators, while Britain said the meeting had lurched into farce and pointed the finger of blame at China.
Mr Brown warned that lessons must be learned from the way the negotiations were carried out.
"Never again should we face the deadlock that threatened to pull down those talks. Never again should we let a global deal to move towards a greener future be held to ransom by only a handful of countries," he said.
While Mr Brown refrained from naming countries, his climate change minister Ed Miliband said China had led a group of countries that "hijacked" the negotiations which had at times presented "a farcical picture to the public".
The agreement finally put together by a select group of leaders set no target for greenhouse-gas emissions cuts and is not legally binding - omissions Mr Miliband blamed on Beijing.
"We did not get an agreement on 50 per cent reductions in global emissions by 2050 or on 80 per cent reductions by developed countries," Miliband wrote in The Guardian newspaper.
"Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries." Mr Miliband's aides told The Guardian that Sudan, Bolivia and other left-wing Latin American governments were included in the criticism.
China, the world's top polluter, resisted pressure for outside scrutiny of its emissions. It has given the warmest welcome to the accord.
"With the efforts of all parties, the summit yielded significant and positive results," Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a statement.
France's Prime Minister François Fillon, on a visit to Beijing, trod delicately but he showed Europe's frustration with the outcome.
"France, like all of the EU, would have wanted the Copenhagen Accord to go a bit further," he said, while adding that the agreement should serve as a stepping stone for a more comprehensive agreement.
His comments echoed those of US President Barack Obama who acknowledged that all of the world's polluters would quickly have to do more after the "extremely difficult and complex negotiations" needed in Copenhagen.
Mr Rasmussen, who came in for widespread criticism over his stewardship of the summit of around 130 leaders, said the agreement was "better than nothing".
The Dane said the conference had become quagmired before the arrival of the leaders for Friday's finale with lower-level negotiators having made neglible progress since its start on December 7.
"Without the intervention of heads of state, there would not have been an agreement," Mr Rasmussen told Danish television. "Before their arrival, the negotiators were at an impasse.
"When the leaders arrived, there was not even a framework agreement to discuss and we had 24 hours, which is too little time, to create a text which should have been negotiated during the two weeks of the conference," he added.
What was agreed and left unfinished in UN deal
1. A new treaty?
• No decision on whether to agree a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol.
• No agreement on whether to sign one new treaty replacing Kyoto, or two treaties.
• Kyoto limits the emissions of nearly 40 richer countries from 2008 to 2012, but the US never ratified the protocol and it does not bind the emissions of developing nations.
• Rich nations prefer one new treaty including all countries; developing countries want to extend and sharpen rich nation commitments under Kyoto, and add a separate deal binding the US and supporting action by poorer countries.
• No agreement on whether a new pact would run from 2013 to 2017 or 2013 to 2020, or any another time frame.
2. Long-term goal to fight climate change
• Recognises "the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2"C.
• Agrees that "deep cuts in global emissions are required according to science".
• Agrees to stop global and national greenhouse gas emissions from rising "as soon as possible".
• No agreement on goals for global emissions cuts in the long-term, such as by 2050.
• Implementation of the accord would be reviewed in 2015 to ensure the world was avoiding dangerous climate change, to "include consideration of strengthening the long-term goal", for example to limit temperature rises to 1.5C.
3. 2020 emissions cuts by developed countries
• Rich countries would "commit to economy-wide emissions targets for 2020" to be submitted by January 31, 2010.
• Rich nation parties to the Kyoto Protocol would strengthen their existing targets.
• No agreement on a base year for 2020 goals, for example compared with 1990 or 2005.
• Rich nations have so far offered 2020 targets of cuts about 14 to 18 per cent below 1990 levels.
• Developing nations including China want collective rich nation cuts of at least 40 per cent by 2020 versus 1990.
4. Climate action by developing nations
• Developing nations would "implement mitigation actions" to slow growth in their carbon emissions, submitting these by January 31 next year.
• Developing countries would report those actions once every two years via the UN climate change secretariat.
• Actions which rich nations paid for would be recorded in a registry.
5. Finance
• Establishes a "Copenhagen Green Climate Fund".
• Agrees a "goal" for the world to raise $100 billion per year by 2020 to help developing countries cut carbon emissions and adapt to climate change.
• The funding would come from "a wide variety of sources".
• Developed countries would raise funds of $30 billion from 2010 to 2012 to help developing nations fight climate change.
• No agreement on how much individual countries would contribute to or benefit from any funds.
• "A significant portion" of the funds would flow through the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, which would support projects to slow deforestation, help countries adapt to climate change and fund the development and sharing of clean technologies.
6. Saving tropical forests
• Recognised the "crucial role" of reducing carbon emissions from destroying forests, and to raise funds to achieve that.
Other outcomes, decisions
1. Excluded sectors, loopholes
• No agreement on whether to include emissions from aviation and shipping in climate targets, and make it mandatory to include farming and forestry.
• Kyoto excludes greenhouse gases from aviation and shipping, responsible for at least five per cent of global emissions.
• Under Kyoto, rich countries do not have to include in their targets emissions from land use, including forests and farming.
• Combined, farms and deforestation account for a third of all global greenhouse gases.
2. Adopted decision on carbon markets
• No agreement on how to scale up carbon finance under Kyoto's existing $6.5-billion clean development mechanism (CDM).
• Under the CDM rich nations pay for emissions cuts in developing countries through trade in carbon offsets.
• The EU wants the scheme to invest tens of billions of dollars annually in developing nations by 2020.
• Agreement to allow developers to appeal against UN panel rejections of CDM projects.
• No agreement on whether to include carbon capture storage in the CDM, a technology which cuts carbon emissions from coal plants.
• No agreement on including forest preservation in CDM.
3. Adopted decision on conserving tropical forests
• Agrees to ensure indigenous peoples are involved in measures to curb deforestation.
• Asks developing countries to identify drivers of deforestation and to start measuring emissions from destroying trees.
• No agreement on specific funds for forest preservation.