The Paris climate agreement in 2015 aimed to limit global warming to 1.5C. But have politics and lobbying got in the way of urgently needed progress? Is it too late for some nations? There has been much scepticism among delegates at COP28 as to whether the hosts are honest brokers in this process and if the money pledged by the wealthiest nations is enough to mitigate this crisis. Shaun Ley is joined by: Rachel Kyte served as Special Representative for the UN Secretary-General, and is a long standing advocate for sustainable energy. She was vice president of the World Bank and is a visiting professor at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford in the UK. Cassie Flynn, who's now global director of climate change at the UN Development Programme. Cassie Flynn was senior adviser to the Prime Minister of Fiji when he was presiding at COP23 in 2017. Adil Najam, Professor of International Relations and Earth and Environment at Boston University. He's originally from Pakistan. In the summer, Professor Najam became President of WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature. Also featuring: Amos Wemanya, is senior advisor on climate and energy at Power Shift Africa, a pan African non governmental organisation from Kenya. Vishal Prasad, campaign director of Pacific Islands' Students Fighting Climate Change from Fiji. Produced by Rumella Dasgupta and Max Horberry. (Photo: Activists protest to demand loss and damage payments by rich countries to poor countries affected by climate change at COP28, Dubai. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
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And this week we're halfway through COP28 in Dubai, which means countries have spent almost 30 years now failing to agree an international convention to tackle climate change.
The pledges made over the years so far are voluntary and unenforceable.
Right now, the UN and Secretary General Antonio Guterres say the world is way off course.
We have the roadmap to limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst of climate chaos.
But we need leaders to fire the starting gun at cop 28 on a race to keep the 1.5 degree limit alive.
This delegate from Africa is among those who say a climate event has become a lobbying opportunity for those with every interest to desire a slow transition away from fossil fuels.
This process is turning into an expo and we saw that we had over 600 lobbyists in Egypt, but in this Dubai cop, I think the number has really skyrocketed.
We are talking about 2400 plus fossil fuel lobbyists.
I know you wouldn't expect in a world health conference to have tobacco lobbyists, but this is happening in a climate conference.
Worrying too.
The presiding at this conference is Sultan Ahmed Al Jabba who also chairs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and who said this, there is no science out.
There or no scenario out there that says that the phase out of fossil fuel is what's going to achieve 1.5.
1.5 is minor star and a phase down and a phase out of fossil fuel in my view is inevitable.
It is essential, but we need to be real serious and pragmatic about it.