SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.N. climate talks face a crisis unless the U.S. Senate passes a climate control bill and failure to do so further risks the future of vulnerable countries such as small island states, Tuvalu said on Wednesday.

Tuvalu, whose 12,000 people live on nine coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean about half-way between Hawaii and Australia, fears being wiped off the map by climate change and is demanding big carbon polluters sign up to deep emissions cuts.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – President Barack Obama forged a climate pact with major developing nations including China on Friday but European nations only reluctantly signed up for a deal they criticized as unambitious.

All sides conceded the agreement — the first pact for fighting global warming since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol — was imperfect and fell far short of United Nations targets for the December 7-18 talks.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A U.N.-backed system to pay poorer nations for saving or replanting their forests has made significant progress at climate talks in Denmark, the official who chairs talks on the scheme said on Wednesday.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD as the scheme is called, has wide support from many nations because it puts a price on preserving and rehabilitating forests.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – President Barack Obama has expressed confidence a climate deal can be clinched as dozens of world leaders gather on Wednesday to try to break a deadlock at U.N. climate talks.

“The president believes that we can get an operational agreement that makes sense in Copenhagen,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a briefing in Washington on Tuesday, three days before a deadline on a new U.N. deal to combat climate change.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Saving tropical forests is crucial to fighting climate change but efforts to halt deforestation could go awry without safeguards to protect and compensate local communities, officials and academics said on Sunday.

Forests act like “lungs” of the atmosphere, soaking up large amounts of mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of people also rely on them for food and livelihoods.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – More than 250 million people risk losing their livelihoods because of dying tropical coral reefs in what a senior U.N. environmental economist said on Saturday was part of a double climate crisis facing the world.

“We forget that there are two emissions problems. The one that everyone is aware of and is doing something about is climate change,” said Pavan Sukhdev of the U.N. Environment Programme on the sidelines of the world’s largest climate talks.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A U.N. climate pact must expand the circle of countries in the fight against warming, Australia said on Saturday, but officials at talks in Denmark have a long way to go to seal the outlines of a global deal.

Australia fears rising temperatures will trigger more intense bushfires and greater extremes of droughts and floods, threatening crops and livelihoods. It says all major greenhouse gas emitters should sign up to legally binding steps to reduce emissions.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – A draft climate pact unveiled on Friday revived hopes that U.N. talks might be able to pin down an international deal to fight global warming, but developing nations said they needed more cash from the rich.

With less than a week until more than 110 world leaders descend on the talks, the proposal that would at least halve global emissions by 2050 sought to bridge some of the long-standing rifts between rich and poor nations.

COPENHAGEN/OSLO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Thursday to break the deadlock at climate change talks in Copenhagen, although many nations accused the United States of lacking ambition.

In a move that could boost Obama’s position when world leaders join the U.N. talks next week, three U.S. senators outlined a compromise climate bill on Thursday that aims to win the votes needed for passage next year.

By Erik Kirschbaum and David Fogarty BERLIN/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Climate activists staged protests on Saturday to add pressure on leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, to agree a strong deal to combat global warming at talks this month in Denmark.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose country is the world’s number four greenhouse gas emitter, announced he would attend a closing summit in Copenhagen, joining 104 other leaders including Obama in a sign of growing momentum for a deal.