US President Barack Obama acknowledged on Wednesday that the disappointment over the outcome of the Copenhagen climate change summit was justified, echoing the widespread sentiment that the conference was a failure. In an interview with PBS Newshour, he stated that while people had reason to be disappointed, it was better to have some progress rather than a complete collapse. The accord that Obama helped negotiate has been criticized by Sweden as a disaster for the environment, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the summit as flawed or chaotic at best. Climate change advocates have been particularly harsh in their assessment, as the agreements reached fell short of the original goals to reduce carbon emissions and combat global warming due to the inability to bridge the gap between rich and developing nations during the negotiations. Some people blamed China specifically for the lack of agreement on significant reductions in global emissions. British Environment Minister Ed Miliband accused China of "hijacking" efforts in an article in the Guardian newspaper. China denied this accusation and claimed that London was trying to create division among developing countries on the issue of climate change. While Obama did not explicitly blame China, he did mention that the Chinese delegation was not participating in negotiations before he intervened personally. Obama stated that when negotiations were about to break down and the Indian prime minister was leaving, the Chinese representatives were not actively participating, causing chaos until cooler heads prevailed. Obama reached an agreement with China, India, Brazil, and South Africa during the last hours of the conference after having a one-on-one meeting with the leaders of these nations. He stated that they were able to agree on targets that are not legally binding for all countries, including the United States, Europe, China, and India, which are expected to be the biggest emitters in the future.