The interests of profit-hungry and polluting corporations won out at the recent UN climate talks, lamented Christian Aid on Sunday.
Christian Aid spokesperson Mohamed Adow said the delays written into the agreement would mean that help comes too late for the poor.
"Action against climate change in 2020 will come a decade too late for poor people on the frontline - they urgently need it now.
"Their lives are already ravaged by floods, droughts, failed rains, deadly storms, hunger and disease and we know that these disasters will get worse and more frequent as climate change bites.
Adow complained that the outcome in Durban was a compromise that would ultimately prove ineffective.
"It is a disastrous, profoundly distressing outcome - the worst I have ever seen from such a process."
Adow added that said the Kyoto protocol now exists "in name only" and that the only "notable achievement" of the Durban talks was the agreement reached that the Green Climate Fund would soon have staff and an office.
"But the Fund remains empty and so countries must keep working to identify new sources of the $100bn a year which they have already agreed must be available to poor countries by 2020, to help them cope with climate change and pursue sustainable development."
The next Conference of Parties (COP 18) would be chaired and hosted by Qatar between November 26 and December 8 next year.