Brown insists there is a "way forward" after Copenhagen

Gordon Brown has vowed to keep up the momentum towards delivering a binding international climate change agreement later this year, despite the recriminations that dominated the fallout from last month's Copenhagen summit.

Speaking in an interview with the BBC yesterday, Brown said he has a plan which he believes will ensure negotiations continue to progress ahead of the major UN climate change summit in Mexico in December, which is likely to mark the last chance to agree a treaty to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol before it expires in 2012.

"I've got an idea about how we can actually move this forward over the next few months and I'll be working on this," Brown said. "I think it's not impossible that the groundwork that was done at Copenhagen could lead to what you might call a global agreement that everybody is happy to stand by."

He failed to provide details of the plan, but insisted he could "see a way forward because what prevented an agreement was suspicion and fear and forms of protectionism that I think we've got to get over".

Despite the fact that diplomats are still digesting the fallout from last month's Copenhagen summit – which ended in acrimony after countries agreed only to take note of an accord that was widely criticised for failing to deliver detailed commitments to cut emissions – the negotiations are now entering a crucial few months.

By the end of January industrialised countries have to complete the first annex to the Copenhagen Accord by announcing emission reduction targets for 2020. Meanwhile, those developing economies that back the agreement are required to complete the second annex to the document by providing detailed climate change action plans.

A major meeting is scheduled for the German city of Bonn in the spring, where significant progress is expected on many of the key issues discussed in Copenhagen, including proposals to protect tropical forests, increase climate funding for developing countries, reform global carbon markets and establish a means of independently verifying countries' emission reductions.

However, any progress will have to overcome considerable bad feeling between industrialised countries and China, which has been further exacerbated after diplomats accused China's negotiators in Copenhagen of blocking any chance of a more ambitious agreement. Chinese officials rejected the criticism, accusing industrialised countries of failing to do enough to curb their own emissions.