British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday that UN climate talks in Copenhagen were "held to ransom" by a small group of countries, in comments released by his Downing Street office.
In a podcast due to be issued later Monday, Brown welcomed the fact that a deal was done to help combat global warming but warned 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.
Brown did not mention specific countries, although British Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband had earlier pointed the finger at China, saying it had "hijacked" the summit by blocking a legally binding treaty.
The prime minister admitted the talks "were not easy" and at one point, "I did fear the process would collapse and we would have no deal at all.
"Yet through strength of common purpose, we were able finally to break the deadlock and -- in a breakthrough never seen before on this scale before -- secure agreement from the international community.
{{/usCountry}}"Yet through strength of common purpose, we were able finally to break the deadlock and -- in a breakthrough never seen before on this scale before -- secure agreement from the international community.
{{/usCountry}}"But this cannot be the end -- in fact, it is only the beginning and we must go further still. To do that, we must learn lessons from Copenhagen and the tough negotiations that took place."
Brown said one of the "frustrations" of the talks was "the lack of a global body with the sole responsibility for environmental stewardship".
He called for the world community to next year look at reforming international institutions to meet the challenges of climate change.
The deal agreed at Copenhagen after two weeks of tense negotiations has been widely condemned as one that excludes the poor and dooms the world to disastrous climate change.
The non-binding accord was assembled by the leaders of the United States, China, India, Brazil, South Africa and major European nations, after it became clear the 194-nation summit was in danger of failure.