On Sunday, world leaders, negotiators and industry representatives will begin to arrive in Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt for Cop27, the UN’s climate change conference. A UN report set the stage for talks last week, stating that there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” and that progress on limiting global temperature rises has been “woefully inadequate”. So will governments take the opportunity to press ahead with their promises or could the conference live up to accusations of greenwashing? In the first of five special episodes covering Cop27, Madeleine Finlay hears from Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor Adam Morton about what’s happened since Cop26, our current path to catastrophic heating and what’s likely to be on the agenda over the next two weeks. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod