"The one thing that has appalled me most is to witness the degree to which the international community is cutting off its nose to spite its face," he told a Hong Kong business conference sponsored by The Economist magazine.

"(The world) is behaving as though climate change is somebody else's problem... This is in the collective interest and it's a collective challenge," the Dutch national said.

"Unless we deal with that challenge ... we really are in big trouble."

De Boer's blunt assessment came a week before steps down from the UN post to take a climate advisory job at international consulting firm KPMG.

He was appointed as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in September 2006. In February, de Boer suddenly announced his resignation effective July 1, three months ahead of schedule.

Praised by some for his work on climate change, de Boer also came under fire for the outcome at the Copenhagen talks, which ended in December in near-chaos as world leaders scrambled to find a face-saving deal.

Leaders of a core group of major polluting countries stitched together a pact to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

But the accord failed to get the seal of approval at a plenary session, after a number of countries from Latin America and Africa railed at its unambitious scope and for being excluded from the haggling.

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