NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday admitted what most have already accepted -- that the Copenhagen climate meet will not see any substantial deal to prevent the world from slipping towards a climate catastrophe.

"Do not expect anything much from Copenhagen. We will stick to our stand," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said during a function here.

The meeting of 191 countries at Copenhagen from December 7-18 was mandated two years ago to hammer out a comprehensive agreement to stem human-induced climate change. But the hope of such a pact faded with the industrialized countries, more worried about regaining economic health after recession, backing off from fulfilling their obligations under the existing UN convention and the Bali Action Plan.

The ambition was downgraded smoothly with EU coming out in support of the US to do away with the Kyoto Protocol, which puts strict economy-wide emission reduction targets on rich countries. The host country, Denmark, along with other rich countries instead began a public campaign seeking a `politically binding agreement', simply interpreted to mean a political statement signed on to by the head of states.

But the recently concluded two-day meet of ministers from more than 50 countries at Copenhagen, referred to in UN jargon as pre-COP, saw the industrialized countries demand that the political statement also lay the ground for burying Kyoto in the negotiations that would now have to stretch into 2010.

The continuation of an effective Kyoto Protocol in its second phase starting 2013 with the developed countries taking deep emission cuts in the mid-term had turned into a red line for the 140-member G77 block and China. In the last formal round of negotiations at Barcelona, the divide between the rich and poor nations had widened with 50 African countries boycotting negotiations for two days on the issue.

The pre-Cop on November 16-17 attended by Jairam Ramesh was meant to help cement such crevices but it instead saw the developed countries demand that even the political statement set the agenda for future talks only on a new single legal instrument under the UN climate convention and not allow further progress on Kyoto Protocol, as demanded by developing countries and mandated in the Bali Action Plan of 2008.