TIMELINE: Climate worries pave way to Bangkok talks

(Reuters) - Delegates from up to 190 nations will meet in Bangkok from March 31-April 4 for a first set of talks on a new climate treaty since the Kyoto Protocol was agreed in 1997.

Here is a chronology of climate change-related meetings and events since the start of 2007:

2007

* Feb 2, PARIS: First of four reports in 2007 by the U.N. Climate Panel concludes that mankind is "very likely" to blame for global warming. Subsequent panel reports highlight the risks of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts and heatwaves and that poor nations would suffer most. The cost of the most stringent scenarios to curb emissions would mean a loss of global GDP by 2030 of less than 3 percent.

* June 7, HEILIGENDAMM, Germany - World leaders agree at a G8 summit to pursue "substantial" but unspecified cuts in greenhouse gases and work with the United Nations to clinch a new deal to fight global warming by the end of 2009. The United States had previously opposed setting long-term goals.

* July 7, NEW YORK, LONDON, SYDNEY, TOKYO, SHANGHAI, RIO DE JANEIRO, JOHANNESBURG, HAMBURG: former U.S. vice president Al Gore organizes the "Live Earth" global climate change benefit involving 24 hours of music across seven continents beamed to an estimated 2 billion people.

* Sept 24, NEW YORK: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon convenes one-day conference with top officials from more than 150 countries to build momentum before a U.N. climate conference in Bali in December. Ban says world leaders showed a "major political commitment" to agree a pact on climate change to succeed the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

* Sept 28, WASHINGTON: U.S. President George W. Bush holds his first major climate change meeting, inviting the 17 biggest greenhouse gas emitters to a two-day conference. Bush, who opposes Kyoto, stresses new environmental technology and voluntary measures to tackle the issue.

* Oct 12, OSLO: The U.N. Climate Panel and Gore, star of the Oscar-winning climate film "An Inconvenient Truth," are joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007.

* Nov 21, SINGAPORE: The 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and six other attendees Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, pledge collective action to combat climate change in the "Singapore Declaration" but set no targets to curb emissions.

* Dec 15, NUSA DUA, Indonesia: About 190 nations agree to launch two years of talks on a new climate pact by the end of 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. The deal was struck after a last-minute U-turn by the U.S. delegation which had been isolated in opposing terms for starting the negotiations.

2008

* March 31-April 4 - About 1,000 delegates meet in Bangkok for the first meeting under the "Bali roadmap" to agree a new climate treaty. No major decisions are likely from the Bangkok talks, which are intended mainly to establish a timetable for more rounds of negotiations.

Source: Reuters, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (unfccc.int/2860.php), Nobel Prize Web site (here) -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: blogs.reuters.com/environment/

(Writing by Alister Doyle and Gill Murdoch; Singapore Editorial Reference Unit)

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on:

blogs.reuters.com/environment/

(Editing by David Fogarty)