The United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, is being held in Dubai from Thursday, November 30 until Tuesday, December 12.
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As always, each COP is eagerly anticipated. This year, The Guardian Australia wrote: "The Albanese government will head to a major UN climate summit in Dubai furnishing evidence claiming that Australia is all but on track to meet its 2030 emissions target, but facing calls that it must do more to limit the country's fossil fuel exports."
A snapshot of an upcoming emissions projections report released by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen suggests Australia will likely cut its CO2 pollution to 42 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 - nearly in line with the government's 43 per cent reduction target.
The projections are based on an assessment of introduced and announced policies, including a revamped safeguard mechanism applied to industrial emissions, an expanded underwriting scheme to help reach 82 per cent renewable energy and a yet to be developed electric vehicle strategy.
A year ago the same analysis suggested the country was headed for a 40 per cent cut. The improving position is likely to fuel arguments that the government could increase its 2030 target and set a substantially more ambitious goal for 2035 next year.
Scientists say wealthy countries such as Australia should be cutting emissions by at least 50 per cent, and up to 75 per cent, by 2030 to play their part in meeting the goals of the landmark Paris climate agreement.
However, despite Bowen's claims a new report has found "Australia is over-relying on carbon offsets and overseas reforestation to achieve its promised climate action, making its pledged action among the weakest in the world" reported Parker McKenzie in The New Daily.
The 2023 update to the Land Gap Report found that Australia's actions in the land sector lacked transparency about where and how land will be used, and risks insufficiently decarbonising key industries.
Dr Kate Dooley, author of the report, said Australia has some of the weakest targets for land-based carbon reduction compared to other wealthy and high-emitting countries.
"We have the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world, but among high-emitting nations we have one of the weakest 2030 pledges in the world," she said. "Other countries have far more ambitious pledges than us, and our pledge is not in line with the science."
About 35 per cent of Australia's emissions reduction target is earmarked to be achieved through removing and sequestering carbon into land and forests, but Dooley said those numbers aren't realistically feasible to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
"We can't offset fuel emissions by growing trees, we need to be doing both," she said. "Australia should have some level of agricultural and forestry measures in its long-term strategy, but that shouldn't be counting for 35 per cent of the effort."
The report examined how much land would be required to achieve pledged climate goals under the Paris Agreement.
Dooley said a major discussion will be around a global stocktake of the action being taken to mitigate climate change.
"They won't be talking about individual countries, so no one will be saying Australia is the worst rich country," she said.
"The message that needs to come from the Land Gap Report is for countries to be more transparent about the land management requirement in their climate mitigation pledges."
The Albanese government regularly pushes the line that its targets are far more ambitious than its predecessors, which is true, but Dooley said analysis from the University of Melbourne has shown that if every country pledged a similar level of action to Australia, the world would be on a path to four degrees of heating.
At four degrees, the world's oceans would experience an unparalleled increase in acidity, ecosystems would collapse, and parts of the world would become uninhabitable for humans. Goodness!
