BANGKOK (Reuters) – Rich and poor nations overcame deep divisions on Friday to cut a deal that maps out U.N. climate negotiations for 2011, building on last December’s agreement in Mexico and hardening the focus on tougher issues.

The deal in Bangkok came after nearly four days of talks that some developing nations said were needed to “recalibrate” U.N. climate negotiations after last year’s Cancun agreements.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The deep divisions apparently bridged by last December’s climate deal in Cancun opened anew this week at U.N. talks in Bangkok, undermining the chance of any agreement on the shape of a broader pact by year’s end.

The April 3-8 talks in the Thai capital stalled on disagreement over an agenda to guide negotiations through the year ahead of a late November annual meeting in Durban, South Africa.

BANGKOK, April 8 (Reuters) – The deep divisions apparently
bridged by last December’s climate deal in Cancun opened anew
this week at U.N. talks in Bangkok, undermining the chance of
any agreement on the shape of a broader pact by year’s end.

The April 3-8 talks in the Thai capital stalled on
disagreement over an agenda to guide negotiations through the
year ahead of a late November annual meeting in Durban, South
Africa.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Arguments over the agenda that have stalled U.N. climate talks in Bangkok this week show that some nations are trying to row back from hard-won agreements reached last December, Russia said on Wednesday.

The December deal in Cancun included a Green Climate Fund to manage $100 billion a year in aid to poor nations by 2020 and to limit a rise in average world temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – U.N. climate talks remained deadlocked on Wednesday over a debate on the agenda for negotiations, with developing countries pushing hard for a greater focus on the fate of the Kyoto Protocol.

The April 3-8 talks in the Thai capital are part of a long and often troubled negotiation trying to strengthen the global fight against climate change by deepening greenhouse gas curbs by the world’s major economies.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Poorer nations upped the ante on rich countries at U.N. climate talks on Tuesday by demanding that the world’s main climate treaty be extended from 2013 and for industrialized countries to deepen carbon-cutting pledges.

Failure to do risked scuttling drawn-out and often fraught negotiations on ways to slow the growth of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions and avoid greater extremes of weather and rising sea levels.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – An Australian scheme to generate farm- and forest-linked carbon credits for sale to polluting firms will start slowly when it comes online later this year, as the government struggles to garner support for a national carbon price seen as crucial to the plan’s long-term success.

The government aims for parliament to pass the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) in time for its expected start on July 1. Approval would usher in the world’s first nationally legislated market for carbon credits from farm projects and be a boost for carbon forestry firms.

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Japan’s nuclear crisis will affect U.N.-led talks to fight climate change because it is prompting nations to rethink energy policies and investment costs, the European Union said on Sunday.

But top EU climate negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger doubted the increased worries over nuclear will lead to a drop in nations’ will to fight climate change or a lowering of existing pledges to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

SINGAPORE/OSLO (Reuters) – Governments face a test of their pledges to fight climate change next week when almost 200 nations meet in Bangkok to try to build on a modest deal reached last year that includes a new green fund and rising aid.

The April 3-8 talks are the first since environment ministers agreed a package last December in Mexico that put the U.N. negotiations back on track. Japan’s nuclear crisis is likely to overshadow the 2011 sessions about low-carbon energies.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Nations need to speed up the sharing of genetic material from crops if the world is to have any chance of feeding itself in a future with more extreme droughts, floods and storms, a senior U.N. official said.

Scientists say new varieties of wheat, rice, corn and other staples will be needed to cope with rising temperatures, greater extremes of rainfall and diseases in coming decades caused by global warming.