TRANSCRIPT
After a year of extreme weather events, with 2023 on track to be the hottest year on record, this year's COP summit is hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai - the world’s sixth biggest oil exporter.
Ultimately a complex process of negotiations, it will run for two weeks.
The key issues this year are around funding for developing countries to transform and mitigate loss and damage, as well as how to increase renewables.
The most contentious though – turning off the fossil fuel taps.
Dr Simon Bradshaw is the Research Director for the Climate Council.
“There is a lot of people trying to put the brakes on by false solutions. So carbon capture and storage for example - the idea where you can continue burning fossil fuels so long as we can capture the carbon dioxide and bury it underground. This is often what unabated is referred to. So you can abate it in other ways through carbon capture and storage. The truth is we could never do that at anything like the scale required. The science here is unequivocal. There is no alternative but to be getting out of fossil fuels, leaving them in the ground, getting our emissions down at the same time of course, restoring eco systems , building up renewable energy. But fundamentally its about moving beyond fossil fuels.”
Top of the agenda - the first-ever global stocktake to assess progress - and how to get back on track.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to limit long-term global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees celcius.
It currently stands at around 1.2 - compared with pre-industrial times.
And recent estimates suggest the world is on track for a 2.5 to 2.9 degree rise this century.
But Professor Mark Howden, the vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says negotiations can only be passed with unanimous support from all countries present.
“It could potentially lead to a watering down of the ambition of the negotiations if particular countries see some sort of phasing down of new fossil fuels against their national interest. So in that circumstance, we might get a less ambitious text coming out of the negotiations”
The call to agree an end to fossil fuel production at this COP has been growing - a key sticking point for many producers like Australia.
Australia is the world's second biggest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas.
That makes us the third largest fossil fuel exporter.
Since 2000, Australia has approved 740 fossil fuel projects - with another two dozen in the approval pipeline.
Professor Howden says that with COP 28 being hosted by an oil producer concerns are raised that there won't be any new breakthroughs
“There have been some elements which are already in a sense pre-agreed. So I think having those on the table as key issues is good because it will ensure additional progress on those issues but it should not come at the cost of the broader ambitions. Most of the critical decisions and signing off's do happen towards the end of the meeting and so having the powerful players there does give additional weight to what goes on in that time frame.”
Around 167 world leaders are expected to attend
But Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won't be one of them.
Along with other notable absentees - US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
