Global climate change talks have moved backwards since last year, various media quotes negotiators from both rich and poor nations as saying after recent climate talks in Germany.

The US envoy has accused some countries of walking away from commitments made at Copenhagen last year to curb emissions.

“At this point, I am very concerned,” chief US negotiator Jonathan Pershing told BBC News at the conclusion of a week of talks in Bonn. “Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from progress made in Copenhagen, and what was agreed there.”

The EU’s climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard was also pessimistic. “These negotiations have if anything gone backwards,” she is quoted as saying.

Pershing told the press that some developing countries backed away from commitments to slow the growth of their emissions, saying such controls should only apply to industrialised countries.

He warned that record global temperatures, devastating floods in Pakistan and forest fires in Russia were “consistent with the kind of changes we could expect from climate change, and they will get worse if we don’t act quickly”.

The accord reached at the fractious summit in Copenhagen last year recognised the need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C  above pre-industrial levels.

In the non-binding agreement, rich countries promised to deliver $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change.