A week from now I’ll be heading to Glasgow for what may be the most important global gathering of our lifetimes. As we count down the days to the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26), I feel buoyed by the unprecedented surge in global action leading into this monumental event, but also daunted by the scale of the task still ahead. Most of all, I feel determined to help ensure Australia rises to the moment and plays its part in delivering a successful outcome.

If we’re to take just one message from the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it’s that climate pollution needs to plummet this decade. Period.

For all those watching our unfolding climate crisis and the world’s efforts to respond, the past two years have been remarkable. We have seen the brute realities of a warming planet manifest faster than most scientists ever imagined. We have entered a new age of megafires, deadly heatwaves, monster storms and catastrophic floods. From Townsville to Tuvalu, New York to New Delhi, almost no community has been left untouched. And from the Great Barrier Reef to the grasslands of Tibet, the impact on the world’s critical ecosystems, to which our own lives and security are inextricably tied, has been both heartbreaking and alarming.

At the same time, if you were to have told me a year ago that we’d be approaching COP26 with all the world’s big developed nations having committed to halve their emissions this decade, and with more than two-thirds of the world having called time on fossil fuels through commitments to net zero by mid-century, I would have been stunned. Believe it or not, that is where we find ourselves. Unfortunately, Australia is not on that list of countries stepping up ahead of COP26.

Is it yet enough? Not by far. We need to do more and urgently. Even with these new commitments, the world is on track to a devastating 2.7 degrees of warming – an amount that the science tells us is almost certainly incompatible with well-functioning human societies. But it is momentum. And if COP26 succeeds in building on it and emboldens countries to step up their actions through the 2020s, we may yet secure a future in which young people today, and their children and grandchildren, can not only survive but thrive.

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Ten days out from COP26, the Climate Council has released a report that reveals Australia is in fact the worst climate performer of all developed countries when looking at both our track record and our commitments. Dead last, in the most important race humanity has ever faced.

Make no mistake, Australia is a carbon giant. Accounting for emissions produced here and those resulting from Australian fossil fuel exports, we are the fifth biggest source of climate pollution worldwide, behind only the US, EU, China and Russia, despite having only a fraction of the population. We are a huge contributor to this global crisis.

Too many of our leaders have been quick to downplay Australia’s potential to help tackle the global climate crisis. But after 20 years of following international climate negotiations, and as a veteran of five UN climate conferences, I’ve learned we should never underestimate Australia’s power to influence the course of global climate action – either for better or worse.