By Jane Wardell

BRISBANE Australia (Reuters) - Australia's ill-fated attempts to stop G20 world leaders talking about climate change is not just something of an embarrassment for this year's host - it signals a shift in focus for the grouping as Turkey prepares to take control next month.

Australia's push to narrow the focus of the disparate grouping, which represents 85 percent of the world's economy, to a specific growth goal was praised by some leaders and financial watchdogs.

But others, including Turkey, China and the United States, were itching to move beyond the straitjacket of a target to improve economic growth by additional 2.1 percent over five years that Australia attempted to impose.

U.S. President Barack Obama was on Australian soil for just a matter of hours before he stole the limelight with a warning that Australia's own Great Barrier Reef is at risk from climate change, and pledged $3 billion to help poor countries cope with climate change, quickly joined by Japan, which promised $1.5 billion, matching an earlier contribution from Germany.

The pressure led Australia to reluctantly agree to a call in the meeting's communique for countries to reveal their environmental targets well ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in September.

Turkey made it clear that climate change would be part of a much broader agenda under its presidency next year.

"We want to be the voice of everybody," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Brisbane. "If the G20 agenda is only limited to financial issues, the G20 cannot function, it cannot have international legitimacy."

China, which signed a surprise agreement with the United States on the eve of the summit to curb carbon emissions, is likely to continue that focus when it takes over in 2016.

That's a sharp contrast to the response from Australian Treasurer Joe Hockey when asked if climate change was potentially one of the biggest impediments to global economic growth: "No. No I don't. Absolutely not."

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Still, the Australian presidency won praise from some quarters, including IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.

"The beauty of this (year) is that the focus, the objectives and the discipline have endured throughout the G20 Australian year," she said. "And the presidency has been flexible enough... to allow the space and the time for discussions on such things as Ebola...and climate change and its impacts on the economy and growth."

(Editing by Eric Meijer)