But is it such a terribly politically uncorrect question to ask what these annual Conference of the Parties United Nations’ summits are actually achieving? Have they become a waste of time, merely a chance for an annual catch-up for mates from across the planet and an opportunity for greenwashing from governments and corporations about real progress?
Sure, some important agreements are signed each time and some ongoing successes are achieved. But an awful lot more is talked about that gets bogged down in detail and never happens because consensus can’t be reached.
And now it’s time to do it all again. From tomorrow, COP27 takes place in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt, with around 35,000 politicians and environmentalists, representatives of non-government organisations and business people due to discuss the urgency of climate change and what mitigation efforts might be acceptable to most nations.
World leaders, including United States President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are going, as is his predecessor Boris Johnson, who says he wants to talk about how great COP26 in Glasgow was last year.
Among those not going is Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, whose "blah, blah, blah" quote remains one of the most memorable moments from last year’s conference.
Ms Thunberg has condemned the conferences as opportunities for "greenwashing, lying and cheating" and says they are "not really working, unless of course we use them as an opportunity to mobilise". She is also concerned at Egypt’s appalling human rights record and that protest outside the meeting will be minimised or even prohibited by the government.
Admittedly, Ms Thunberg does irritation pretty well. But it is certainly a strong signal about the usefulness of COP for arguably the most recognisable face of climate change to be turning her back on it.
It was at COP21 in Paris in December 2015 that nations signed a legally binding treaty to cut emissions and limit the global average temperature increase to well below 2degC, and preferably 1.5C or lower, above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.
So how is that going? Well, it would appear the aspirational 1.5C-increase limit by 2100 is already a goneburger. A just-released UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report says the world is now heading for a "climate catastrophe", with efforts to lessen global warming nowhere near tough enough.
The report details that worldwide temperatures are already 1.26C higher than pre-industrial levels and that annual emissions have to almost halve by 2030 if the 1.5C target has a show of being met.
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres says without drastic action temperatures are currently on track to rise by 2.8C by 2100, which would equate to "economy-destroying levels of global heating".
The inexorable rise in emissions is being measured across the world. Niwa’s Baring Head observatory near Wellington has the longest continuous record of carbon dioxide levels in the southern hemisphere. When it started operating late in 1972, it measured CO2 at 323 parts per million; this week, it has reached 414.8ppm.
University of Canterbury political scientist Professor Bronwyn Hayward expects this to be a "very difficult COP", with pressure from communities and businesses needed for good results but not easily brought to bear in Egypt, with strong laws against protest.
Neither is she optimistic that next year’s meeting in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates will provide the leadership and huge changes needed to rein in temperature rise.
It may be a pipedream, but the thronging masses at COP27 really have to come up with something momentous this time.
