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Hello and welcome to News Hour, live from the BBC World Service in London. I'm Rebecca Kesby.

World leaders are meeting in Brazil for the pre-meeting, meeting ahead of COP 30 being held in Bel-M Brazil next week.

Host President Lula is there, obviously, Emmanuel Macron and Kier Stama from France and the UK.

And Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa has arrived.

But actually, only a handful of leaders are taking part in today's talks.

There will be no representative from the United States and China and Russia have sent

junior teams.

It's worth mentioning that those three countries are responsible for about half the

world's CO2 emissions between them.

So is international commitment and even interest on the wane and with what result?

Let's cross live to Bel-M in Brazil to our climate correspondent Matt McGraw, who's on the line.

Matt, first of all, this meeting that's happening today, it's sort of the preamble to the actual summit,

but it's seen as being very important. How

significant is it that so many seats are empty? I think that's a very important point, Rebecca.

It's a very loud and lively conference centre here. Lots of Brazilian media out in force to cover

this event, but not so many media from the rest of the world,

and that's reflected in the number of leaders from countries like India and China,

the United States and also who aren't here at the level that they once would have been.

I think it reflects this change in the world's perspective on climate change,

and I think we're going to hear some of those remarks from Sarkir Starmor when he speaks

a little while shortly saying that he thinks that the consensus on climate change is breaking down,

...