By Valerie Volcovici and Richard Valdmanis (Reuters) -As leaders gather for the U.N. climate summit in Brazil this month - three decades after the world's first annual climate conference - the data charting progress in the fight against global warming tells a sobering story.

Diplomats and leaders from around the world are gathering on the edge of the Amazon rainforest for annual talks on how to limit global warming.

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -Dozens of country leaders will gather on Thursday in Brazil’s Amazon city of Belem ahead of the annual U.N. summit on climate change, hoping to advance progress despite growing concerns that multilateral cooperation is on the brink.

Poorer nations struggling to access COVID-19 vaccines may make the "moral" choice not to send delegates to November's U.N. climate summit in Scotland if others more in need of the doses remain at risk,

Host Brazil will preside and set the agenda. For the talks to be a success, world leaders need to beef up efforts and money for adapting to climate change and fund billion-dollar efforts to prevent deforestation and land degradation, said Suely Vaz, who used to run Brazil’s environment agency.

Just days before the start of key climate talks in Brazil, German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider on Wednesday said "fatalism and resignation" pose a bigger risk to efforts to mitigate climate change than oil and gas lobbyists.

EU climate ministers will make a last-ditch attempt to pass a new climate change target on Tuesday, in an effort to avoid going to the U.N. COP30 summit in Brazil empty-handed.

As world leaders come to Brazil for climate talks, people like Cassiano are the ones with the most at stake. Poor communities are often more vulnerable to hazards like extreme heat and supersized storms and less likely to have the resources to cope than wealthier places.