At the United Nations climate talks, hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, nations are trying to set new targets to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and figure out how much rich nations will pay to help the world with that task.

For the third straight year, efforts to fight climate change haven't lowered projections for how hot the world is likely to get — even as countries gather for another round of talks to curb warming, according to an analysis Thursday.

World leaders converged Tuesday at the United Nations annual climate conference with plenty of big names and powerful countries noticeably absent. Past talks often had the star power of a soccer World Cup.