U.N. climate negotiations began Monday on the edge of the Brazilian Amazon as leaders pushed for accelerating efforts to curb global warming by drastically reducing the carbon pollution that causes it. But top U.S. negotiators were absent.

Negotiators can't forget that "the climate emergency is an increase of inequality," host President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told them. He said he picked the host city of Belém instead of "a finished city" to drive home the impact that warming has on the Amazon and on poverty.

"The increase of the global temperature is spreading pain and devastation especially amongst the most vulnerable populations," he told the conference known as COP30.

Brazil straddles oil riches, climate threats as COP30 opens in Amazon

Norway, Indonesia, Brazil and others ple

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