In Belém, the bustling Brazilian gateway to the Amazon rainforest, leaders from nearly 200 nations have gathered for the United Nations' 30th Climate Change Conference, known as COP30, to chart difficult next steps in the global fight against climate change. But the absence of the leaders from the world's three largest greenhouse gas emitters — China, the United States and India — cast a shadow over the summit as it kicked off.

Beijing and New Delhi did dispatch senior-level delegations for the two-week summit. The White House, however, said no high-level U.S. officials would attend this year's COP. President Trump has repeatedly dismissed human-caused climate change as "a hoax."

Two Democratic governors, California's Gavin Newsom and New Mexico's Michelle Lujan Grisham, were in Braz

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