Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband acknowledged that the results of the Copenhagen conference were "disappointing" but insisted that important progress was made in the fight against global warming.
Mr Miliband pointed the finger of blame clearly at China for blocking agreement on legally-binding emissions targets and a 50% cut in greenhouse gases by 2050 at the two-week UN-sponsored climate change conference which wound up on Saturday.
He firmly rejected the argument of some campaigners that having no deal would have been better than the limited deal agreed at Copenhagen.
And he dismissed as "completely disgraceful" Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping's claim that the failure to reach an ambitious deal condemned the people of Africa to the equivalent of the Holocaust.
Mr Miliband told Sky News' Sunday Live: "We got a lot of commitments, not just from developed countries, but developing countries like China and India as well.
"The eventual outcome was disappointing. The most important reason actually is not so much to do with the commitments - because there are actually quite important and good commitments on emissions and finances - but on the issue of it becoming legally binding."
Efforts to give legal force to the commitments in the Copenhagen accord came up against "impossible resistance from a small number of developing countries, including China, who didn't want a legal agreement," said Mr Miliband.
"If leading countries hold out against something like `legally binding' or against the 2050 target of 50% reductions in carbon emissions - which was held out against by countries like China - you are not going to get the agreement you want."
Challenged over accusations that the agreement reached in Copenhagen failed to protect poor people in developing countries, Mr Miliband said: "The alternatives were no agreement or the agreement we have."
