A week before the high profile global climate change forum gets underway in Dubai a new United Nations report on climate change has brought news that national climate action plans by countries across the world remain insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. It is, to say the least, depressing news, which is being handed to us a matter of days before a forum out of which some measure of uplifting news was expected gets underway. The dismal UN report notes that increased efforts by some countries to embrace its responsibilities, notwithstanding, much more action is needed now to bend the world’s emissions trajectory further downward and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.