Germany ? Global climate talks appeared to have slipped backward after five days of negotiations in Bonn, with rich and poor countries exchanging charges of reneging on agreements they made last year to contain greenhouse gases.

Delegates complained that reversals in the talks put negotiations back by a year, even before minimal gains were scored at the Copenhagen summit last December.

“It’s a little bit like a broken record,” said European Union negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger. “It’s like a flashback,” agreed Raman Mehta, of the Action Aid environment group. “The discourse is the same level” as before Copenhagen.

The sharp divide between rich and poor nations over how best to fight climate change — a clash that crippled the Copenhagen summit — remains, and bodes ill for any deal at the next climate convention in Cancun, Mexico, which begins in November.

“At this point, I am very concerned,” said chief U.S. delegate Jonathan Pershing. “Unfortunately, what we have seen over and over this week is that some countries are walking back from progress made in Copenhagen, and what was agreed there.”