The outcome of the Climate Change Copenhagen summit has disappointed Nature Trust (Malta).

In a statement it said world leaders again failed to understand the importance and urgency of the situation.

The five big countries – USA, Brazil, South Africa, China and India completely ignored the issue and put their interests before the common good of the planet.

The agreement was stronger on financial aid to the developing polluters but it was not binding and did not set an urgent deadline for a real climate treaty.

Countries like India, Brazil and South Africa, where the level of poverty was high, would face greater poverty through their own actions at such a summit.

“It is ironic that while civil society and environmental NGos seem to be greatly concerned on our future, some world leaders are simply coming up with excuses.”

Nature Trust said that while big countries might too face problems, it was the small ones that would face the hardship, especially small islands like Malta and Cyprus where the rise in the water level would make land use an even major problem.

While the association acknowledged the fact that EU members states pressured for a better deal, it felt that they were not as strong in their case and did not take the leadership the people were expecting, but gave in to the five big countries’ demands.

Nature Trust urged the Maltese government and Maltese MEPs to keep up their pressure at EU level for the EU to keep up the pressure on other countries such as USA.

It felt Malta was still too far behind to actually meet the EU targets and the authorities should pull up their socks and start implementing the strategy to ensure that Malta would be the country which first raised the climate change issue at United Nations and which first reached EU targets.