Speaking to the STA upon returning from Durban, Kranjc, an official at the Government Climate Change Office, was very content with the compromise in the form of an extension of the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 and the decision to start negotiations on a legally binding agreement of all countries.

Environment Minister Roko Žarnič commented for the STA that the outcome of the lengthy and complicated negotiations strengthened the EU's international position and its credibility with the developing world and island countries.

Negotiations on the new agreement that is to succeed the Kyoto Protocol are expected to conclude by 2015 and the agreement should step into force in 2020.

For the Kyoto Protocol it has not yet been determined whether it will be extended until 2017 or 2020.

The Slovenian branch of the environmental NGO Greenpeace, on the other hand, was not as happy with the outcome of the conference.

It told the STA it was especially disappointed that the countries opposing strict agreements, starting with the US, managed to get a clause in the text that could prevent the next document from being legally binding.

The currently voluntary agreement on fighting climate change was extended by a decade, which could lead beyond the two-degree threshold for global warming when danger will grow into a potential catastrophe, the NGO pointed out.

Climate expert Lucka Kajfez Bogataj stressed that Durban brought only losers, both rich and poor countries, and that "science and the much praised principle of caution have been defeated". Waiting for 2015 or 2020 is unacceptable and dangerous, she said.

Durban put climate change in the group of issues that will remain unresolved and which people will have to live with, she said, adding that just as there was no political will to stop terrorism or abolish poverty, there was no will to limit global warming to two degrees centigrade.