Professor Mark Howden (pictured), the director of the Australian National University's Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions, is optimistic and pessimistic.

Professor Howden saw last year's COP28 process as completely ambiguous. Although the conference produced some heartening eventualities for the world, there was, in his words, "Not a huge amount of good news".

Listen to this episode and you can hear where it is Professor Howden believes the world is headed in 2024.

Professor Howden said many at COP28 referred to this as the "critical decade", but he argued we are in fact in the "critical year".