Pacific leaders are poised to hold what they describe as "perpetrators of climate chaos" to account.

While the new Climate Change Minister Simon Watts was not expecting criticism over fossil fuels at the summit, Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr has served it up.

"What a backward position that an island that is part of the Pacific Island Forum that should understand the challenges that we're facing," Whipps Jr said.

"New Zealand as a Pacific Island and a member of the forum should take a leadership role and should be active in doing all they can to transition away from fossil fuels. That's what they should be working on," he said.

"They shouldn't be going out and exploring more gas and oil."

Surangel Whipps Jr in Rarotonga. 7 November 2023.

Surangel Whipps Jr in Rarotonga. Photo: RNZ Pacific / Lydia Lewis

A Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) has also taken aim at the New Zealand government's plans.

The network's regional coordinator Lavetanalagi Seru said it was not the time to be exploring and expanding the extraction of fossil fuel including gas.

"At a time when the Pacific and many climate frontline communities are grappling with the single greatest security threat of climate change, intensifying fossil fuel dependency, not only undermines collective efforts, but also sends a very strong sense of wrong market signals, neglecting broader environmental and social ramifications," Seru said.

"It will undermine all our efforts to ensure climate resilience for communities, and this isn't the time to be exploring and expanding the extraction of fossil fuels, including gas."

Watts said the overturning of the ban does not weaken New Zealand's climate position.

From left to right: National's Simon Watts, Dale Stephens (Nats candidate for Christchurch Central) National Party leader Christopher Luxon, and Transport spokesperson Simeon Brown.

 Photo: RNZ / Nathan McKinnon

Tuvalu's former prime minister and now opposition leader Enele Sopoaga has a reminder for the new government: "We rely on New Zealand to stand up strong with the island countries".

Niue's Minister for Natural Resources Mona Ainu'u will be drumming home the tangable impacts felt in the Pacific while in Dubai.

"We come to COP, without any commitment from a lot of these countries and these perpetrators of climate chaos, as I call them," she said.

"It's very difficult to hold them accountable. We continue to travel 1000s and 1000s of miles, because our people are suffering. People continue to find innovative ways to survive on this earth. From no fault of ours. But we need to hold these countries accountable."

Ainu'u said there had been little to no movement on last year's commitment by the world's biggest emitters to contribute to costs caused by climate change.

This year, one of the main Pacific priorities is building up that loss and damage fund.

A delegate from Palau, Xavier Matsutaro said there was a lot to put into action.

"Let's just put it this way, there's a lot to prove on COP28, and every subsequent COP becomes more and more urgent because it narrows down that window that we need to do to wrap up in emission reduction," he said.

"And that's one of the things are the heart of this meeting. And one of the things that will spell out the level of success."

'Affect real lives'

A Pacific youth delegate, Metoyer Lohia who's also there, wants to remind the world of the reality of the situation:

"There's a lot of that. I guess media and the Western world don't really understand about the real problems and the real challenges that are faced by our communities and people on the ground," Lohia explained.

"Because at the end of the day, although these are very high level discussions, they ultimately affect real people with real lives and as a Pacific."

President Surangel S. Whipps, Jr. at the World Green Economy Summit in Dubai with Minister of Finance of the United Arab Emirates.

Palau President Surangel S. Whipps, Jr. at the World Green Economy Summit in Dubai with Minister of Finance of the United Arab Emirates. Photo: Supplied/ Palau press office

Whipps Jr said US President Joe Biden was a noticeable absence from this year's meeting.

"The United States needs to be active, it needs to show leadership. And of course, not having Biden here definitely weakens at least or gives us concern about our hope for the future," he said.

"We have Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, all their islands are less than two metres above water.

"I mean, if you're a Pacific island nation, and you don't understand that, I don't know, I don't know how, what else we can say.

"It's just tragic to be hearing these kinds of actions by the New Zealand government."

Pacific, Climate

Copyright © 2023, Radio New Zealand

It will be the most up-to-date assessment of how global warming will change the world in the coming decades.

Scientists say it will likely be bad news - but with "nuggets of optimism".

And environmental experts have said it will be a "massive wake-up call" to governments to cut emissions.

The last time the IPCC looked at the science of global warming was in 2013 - and scientists believe they have learnt a lot since then.

In recent years, the world has seen record-breaking temperatures, raging wildfires and devastating flooding.

Buller High School and surrounds in Westport, flooding, 17 July 2021Westpost flooding in July 2021. Photo: Supplied/NZ Defence Force

Some papers studied by the panel show that some of the changes humans are inadvertently making to the climate will not be reversed for hundreds or maybe thousands of years.

The IPCC's findings - which will be revealed at a press conference at 9am BST (8pm NZT) - will also be used during a major summit hosted by the UK in November.

The summit, COP26, which is run by the UN, is seen as a critical moment if climate change is going to be brought under control. Leaders from 196 countries will meet to try and agree action.

Alok Sharma, the UK minister who is leading the summit, said at the weekend that the world was almost running out of time to avoid catastrophe - and the effects of climate change were already happening.

Prof Piers Forster, an expert in climate change from the University of Leeds, said the report "will be able to say a whole lot more about the extremes we are experiencing today and it will be able to be categoric that our emissions of greenhouse gases are causing them and they are also going to get worse".

"The report will come with quite a lot of bad news about where we are and where we're going, but there are going to be nuggets of optimism in there which I think are really good for the climate change negotiations," he told LBC.

House damaged by tornado on Hayward Road in Papatoetoe, Auckland.House damaged by tornado in Papatoetoe, Auckland in June 2021. Photo: RNZ / Jean Bell

One of the causes for optimism he mentioned was that there is still a chance of keeping global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Experts say the impacts of climate change are far more severe when the increase is greater than 1.5C. So far, global temperatures have climbed to 1.2C above pre-industrial levels.

The Paris climate agreement in 2015 established the goal of keeping the increase in the global average temperature to no more than 2C and to try not to surpass 1.5C.

What we can expect from the report

According to many observers, there have been significant improvements in the science in the last few years.

"Our models have gotten better, we have a better understanding of the physics and the chemistry and the biology, and so they're able to simulate and project future temperature changes and precipitation changes much better than they were," said Dr Stephen Cornelius from WWF, an observer at IPCC meetings.

"Another change has been that attribution sciences have increased vastly in the last few years. We can make greater links between climate change and extreme weather events."

As well as updates on temperature projections, there will likely be a strong focus on the question of humanity's role in creating the climate crisis.

Sixth consecutive day of the wildfire at Evia Island, on August 8, 2021. Wildfire on Evia Island in Greece, on 8 August 2021. Photo: AFP

In the last report in 2013, the IPCC said that humans were the "dominant cause" of global warming since the 1950s.

The message in the latest report is expected to be even stronger, with warnings of how soon global temperatures could rise 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Experts say the impacts of climate change are far more severe when the increase is greater than 1.5C.

It is expected that this time the IPCC will also outline just how much of an influence humans are having on the oceans, the atmosphere and other aspects of our planetary systems.

One of the most important questions concerns sea-level rise. This has long been a controversial issue for the IPCC, with their previous projections scorned by some scientists as far too conservative.

"In the past they have been so reluctant to give a plausible upper limit on sea-level rise, and we hope that they finally come around this time," said Prof Arthur Petersen, from UCL in London.

As the world has experienced a series of devastating fires and floods in recent months that have been linked to climate change, the report will also include a new chapter linking extreme weather events to rising temperatures.

What is the IPCC?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a UN body set up in 1988 to assess the science around climate change.

The IPCC provides governments with scientific information they can use to develop policies on global heating.

The first of its comprehensive Assessment Reports on climate change was released in 1992. The sixth in this series will be split into four volumes, the first of which - covering the physical science behind climate change - will be published on Monday. Further parts of the review will cover impacts and solutions.

A summary has been approved in a process involving scientists and representatives of 195 governments.

- BBC