Copenhagen ends, finger-pointing begins

The patient may not have quite died, but the inquest is already under way.

The Copenhagen Summit formally closed on Saturday, immediately sparking off a round of bitter recriminations over who was to blame for the failure to deliver a more ambitious agreement.

A number of developing economies joined with industrialised nations to criticise a small group of nations, made up of Sudan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, for refusing to recognise the agreement that had been brokered late on Friday by the US, China and other large emerging economies.

Amid increasingly bad tempered scenes as the summit approached its close, Sudan and the group of Latin American countries refused to accept the deal and as a result the summit ended with delegates agreeing to simply take "note" of the so-called Copenhagen Accord.

Industrialised nations were quick to condemn the group for its intransigence, characterising it as an anti-American bloc that had sought to torpedo a " meaningful" deal.

However, the central complaint from Venezuela and others, that the UN process had been subverted and that the US had failed to offer the level of ambitious emissions cuts or climate funding that was required to tackle climate change, attracted sympathy from many developing nations and environmental NGOs.

Writing in the Guardian this morning, British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband - who was widely credited with helping to save the talks from collapse early on Saturday morning with a speech that accused those countries blocking a deal of opposing measures that would "improve the lives of millions of people" - argued that the structure of the UN negotiations required urgent reform.

"We cannot again allow negotiations on real points of substance to be hijacked in this way," he wrote. "We will need to have major reform of the UN body overseeing the negotiations and of the way the negotiations are conducted. "

Meanwhile, the wider recriminations over who was to blame for the absence of global emission targets in the final agreement saw industrialised nations lining up to finger China.

"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," wrote Miliband today. "Both were vetoed by China, despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries."

Other officials were more forthright in their criticism of the Chinese delegation, accusing prime minister Wen Jiabao of refusing to compromise, rejecting the interests of poorer nations, and repeatedly snubbing leaders of industrialised nations, including US President Barack Obama, by sending mid-ranking officials to negotiate.

There were even reports that the final deal was only brokered after US President Obama effectively gatecrashed a meeting between Wen and leaders of other emerging economies and insisted that the Chinese premier kept to a scheduled meeting with the US.

A deal was finally reached that saw industrialised nations and emerging economies agree to table emission targets or national action plans by the end of next month, and commit to work together on the development of new funding initiatives and mechanisms for verifying emission reductions.

However, while China has faced considerable criticism for its stance, some observers accused Obama of getting the negotiations off to a bad start with a speech that contained no new commitments from the US and aimed a series of thinly veiled attacks at China's position.

His announcement that a deal had been reached in the early hours of Saturday morning before the draft accord had been seen by many countries was also blamed in some quarters for further provoking those smaller countries unhappy at the content of the agreement.

The bulk of the criticism over failure to agree global emission targets continued to be aimed at China, however, which was accused of refusing to countenance any measure that could eventually see it faced with binding emission targets.

But this criticism is unlikely to have much impact on the Chinese government, which appeared quietly satisfied with the success of its tough negotiating tactics.

China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said the final deal was "significant and positive", and in a statement that echoed the stance of leaders from industrialised nations, he added that the accord was "not a destination, but a new beginning".