Desperate to restore Australia's reputation on climate action, the Albanese government wants to host one of these United Nations summits with a Pacific Islands partner - possibly as soon as 2024.

Pacific leaders endorsed the idea at this week's leader's forum.

But what would hosting the nation's first COP summit mean for Australia? Would the international spotlight force the Labor government to commit to stronger action, including stopping new coal and gas projects?

Or would it prove merely an expensive, taxpayer-funded "talkfest", which would do nothing to curtail global warming?

COP stands for Conference of the Parties.

Since the first summit in Berlin in 1995, representatives from the almost 200 nations signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have met annually to review progress in the fight against global warming.

These summits are huge events: last November's conference in Glasgow attracted more than 40,000 people across government, industry, advocacy groups and media.

"It's kind of in the realms of hosting a Commonwealth Games," says Richie Merzian, a former climate negotiator who now works for progressive thinktank Australia Institute.

Mr Merzian said putting on extra international flights, building more accommodation and even cordoning off an entire part of the host city could be required to stage the UN's largest event.

It's not cheap either. The UK government forked out about $150 million to cover the cost of staging the two-week show.

At the event itself, negotiators work behind the scenes to reach agreement on an outcome text, which incorporates goals and aspirations on mitigation, adaption and finance.

All nations need to agree on the text, meaning many of the most contentious sections are invariably watered down, tweaked or dumped entirely.

The Paris meeting in 2015 was particularly significant, with countries agreeing to a new goal of trying to limit global average temperature rise to "well below" 2 degrees and preferably to 1.5-degrees of pre-industrial levels.

The COP26 summit was framed as the "last best hope" for keeping the Paris goals within reach.

But though there was progress - the text included a reference to the future of fossil fuels for the first time - people including the UN Secretary-General said countries weren't moving fast enough.

Hosting a summit is a major plank in Labor's plan to rebuild Australia's international climate credentials, which took a battering under the Coalition.

Joining forces with a Pacific nation - which would likely host smaller events in the year leading up to the main summit- would help strengthen ties in the region.

"What it [hosting a COP summit] will do is it will provide a focus on the very real threat of climate change has to our Pacific Islanders neighbours for countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati, it is a threat to their very existence," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday.

Mr Albanese said Australia would need to beat other bidders - including potentially one from Germany - to win the right to host the event in 2024.

"I think it really helps Australia's chances of hosting, the fact that we have such strong support from the Pacific," he said.

But inviting the world to its shores would also invite serious scrutiny of its policies.

Pacific nations are already pushing the government to raise its 43 per cent 2030 emissions reduction target, and oppose the opening of new coal and gas projects.

Mr Merzian said the pressure on Labor would intensify significantly in the lead up to the event, predicting environmental groups to campaign publicly while foreign diplomats apply pressure behind the scenes.

He said science - rather than regard for Australia's domestic political environment - would dictate their position.

"Australia remains the third largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world, behind Russia and Saudi Arabia, that needs to change if Australia is to host a UN Climate Conference with any credibility in partnership with the Pacific," he said.

Greens leader Adam Bandt supported the government's bid to host the summit, but said there would be an expectation globally that it would stop allowing new coal and gas projects to be approved.

Opposition climate and energy spokesman Ted O'Brien didn't respond to a request for comment on his view on hosting a COP summit on Australian shores.

But his predecessor, now opposition treasury spokesman Angus Taylor, made his position clear ahead of the federal election in May.

"Labor are showing their true priorities," he said in comments reported in The Australian.

"Labor cares more about pleasing foreign bureaucrats in the UN and the Twitterati than fighting for the Australian jobs that rely on our strong manufacturing and resources industries."