At UN climate talks in Brazil, the only sign of the United States is an empty chair

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — A litany of recent weather disasters rang long Monday at the opening of U.N. climate negotiations: Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, a deadly tornado in Brazil, droughts and fire in Africa. Against that backdrop, activists used an empty chair to drive home the absence from these talks of the United States, the world's richest nation and second-biggest carbon polluter.

World leaders highlighted the devastation wrought on some of the world's poorest places to show the need to work collectively to fight global warming, which is fueling extreme weather. But any united front will be without the U.S., one of only four nations missing the talks, along with tiny San Marino and strife-torn Afghanistan and Myanmar.

The 195 nations who did come to Belem, a weathered city on the edg