Know better. Do better.

As the great and the good hop on their private jets to attend next week's talk fest in Davos, they'll need to do some serious thinking to meet the challenge set by the World Economic Forum (WEF) for this year's gathering: rebuilding trust. 

On a warming planet in “polycrisis” - with wars raging from Gaza to Ukraine, a clutch of elections beset by disinformation, and ethical concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) - one could argue that globally, trust is in tatters. There may, however, be a bright spot when it comes to efforts to tackle climate change.

Released by the WEF and McKinsey & Company ahead of the Davos jamboree, a new "Global Cooperation Barometer" tracking the past decade shows that things have gone downhill since 2020 largely due to weakened cooperation in peace and security.

But, it says, the deal at December's COP28 climate talks - including for the first time a call for countries to transition away from fossil fuels - shows the world can "take steps to address its biggest challenges in the face of ongoing geopolitical instability".

The hard-won agreement in Dubai was a compromise between the 100 or so countries that wanted a full fossil fuel phase-out and those that sought an outcome enabling them to keep on producing oil and gas.

The big question for 2024 will be how to start putting that shift from dirty to clean energy into practice - not just fast, but also in a way that is economically fair and doesn't leave vulnerable countries and people shouldering an unaffordable burden.

In this analysis, climate policy experts explain why the equity part of the green transition matters if we're to manage wholesale transformation in a way that avoids social unrest and builds global cooperation, rather than undermining it.

As the dust settles from Dubai, we asked leading climate analysts and activists for their predictions for this year - from potential "tipping points" to reasons for optimism, even as climate-changing emissions continue to rise.

Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, didn't mince his words, arguing that the foremost challenge for the world in 2024 is to start bending the emissions curve downwards.

"If this is not accomplished in the next two years, we will firmly close the door to holding global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius," he warned. "If the Dubai Agreement becomes one more example of empty promises, then we tip from big to massive trouble."

Our panel also pointed to key uncertainties surrounding national elections in high-emitting countries this year, from India to Indonesia and the U.S. to the UK.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, global climate and energy lead at WWF, said it would be "a major blow for climate action to see politicians who deny climate change or seek to delay climate action taking power at this critical time".

On the upside, he highlighted how the Paris climate agreement has shown "its resilience to political change" in recent years as "an instrument with a clear long-term vision that can survive short-term challenges". This year may see that resilience put to the test again.

Will it also be a year in which women grasp new opportunities to steer the ship on climate action? They were conspicuous by their relative absence among the leaders and top COP28 officials in Dubai, yet nearly 70 countries signed a pledge there to drive a "gender-responsive just transition".

In an oped for Context, Razan Al Mubarak, a U.N. Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, explains how that effort could be advanced by improving data, unlocking climate finance and creating decent green work opportunities for women. 

Rachel Kyte, a longstanding advocate of women's leadership in climate action and now a visiting professor at Oxford University's Blavatnik School of Government, says women's social ties put them in pole position for strengthening resilience as the planet warms. 

"Whether it's women as heat czars, women fighting for their children's right to breathe, or women holding methane monitors in low-income communities around LNG terminals, this is their moment," she told Context.

Full steam ahead!
Megan