The climate conference went into an extra day of discussions in Copenhagen, but failed to adopt a legally binding treaty or commitments, only "taking note " of an agreement cobbled together by US President Barak Obama in discussion with India, China, Brazil and South Africa and several industrialised nations.

After 24 hours of backroom discussions, intense lobbying and high-level diplomacy, the document that emerged was hastily put into the UN records by conference president, after three adjournments of the plenary, when several countries took strong objection to the way the deal had been put together.

Dr. Singh had put his foot down on the question of a legally binding treaty on which the European Union wanted to begin negotiations, because there is already a legal treaty in Kyoto Protocol. However, India and the other three countries (China, South Africa, Brazil) had agreed to reporting and verification issues after China reached a compromise with the US.

The BASIC leaders also refused to allow for their emission cuts to be verified by the international community, as this would impinge on their sovereignty. Copenhagen Accord aims at a 2 degrees Celsius limit to global warming by reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. However, there is no penalty clause for nations who fail to meet their commitments. There is also no deadline for global emissions to peak, which pleases India, but left many scientists, activists and vulnerable countries disappointed.

So, the resulting Copenhagen Accord was protested by several nations that demanded deeper emission cuts by the industrialised world and felt excluded from the major-nation bargaining process. The Indian team is also happy about the focus on equity, but admitted that it had relaxed its position on monitoring and verification of domestic mitigation action.

The Copenhagen Accord arrived at during the climate summit will instantly forgive the industrialised countries' historical responsibility for climate change, eliminate the distinction between developed and developing countries and fatally undermine efforts to renew the Kyoto Protocol. Accusing India of buckling under pressure in Copenhagen, the CSE, in a statement, said the Copenhagen Accord agrees to weak and non-legally binding commitments from the developed world. The Copenhagen Accord agrees to a process which will ultimately kill the Kyoto Protocol and undermine the legitimacy of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It changes the framework of equity and historical emissions. It states that actions by developing countries which are not supported through international finance and technology also be open to international consultation and analysis, which could become a backhand way of bringing in international commitments on these countries.

Greenpeace said global leaders had failed to act to avert a catastrophic change. Mr. Singh and other leaders of BASIC group failed India and the world when they let the US and developed countries off the hook. We have seen a year of crisis, but today at Copenhagen summit, it is clear that the biggest crisis facing humanity is a leadership crisis. The real fact is that rich nations are not ready to hold historical responsibility that they are the real cause for the climate change. They only became rich by emitting gas that spoiled poor countries and they are not ready to sacrifice to save the planet.

Copenhagen Accord also failed to act on one issue many thought was near success here: A plan to protect the world's rain forests, vital to the healthy climate, by paying some 40 poor tropical countries to protect their woodlands. Deforestation for logging, cattle grazing and crops has made Indonesia and Brazil the world's third and fourth biggest carbon emitters, after China and the US. So the already agreed-upon emission cuts fall far short of action needed to avoid potentially dangerous effects of climate change. These cuts are to be made by 2020 ; US, a 17 per cent, China 40 to 45 per cent, India 20 to 25 per cent,EU,30 per cent and Japan, 25 per cent.

Wealthy nations will rise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations cope with the effects of climate change, such as droughts and floods. Short-term funding of roughly $30 billion over three years will begin in 2010, to help developing countries adopt to climate change and shift to clean energy.