UAE Names Oil Firm Chief to Lead U.N. COP28 Local weather Talks

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates on Thursday named a veteran technocrat who each leads Abu Dhabi’s state-run oil firm and oversees its renewable power efforts to be the president of the upcoming United Nations local weather negotiations in Dubai, highlighting the balancing act forward for this crude-producing nation.

Learn Extra: A Breakthrough on Climate Compensation and 7 Other Takeaways From COP27

Authorities nominated Sultan al-Jaber, a trusted confidant of UAE chief Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who serves as CEO of the Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Co. That agency pumps some 4 million barrels of crude a day and hopes to develop to five million day by day.

These revenues gasoline the ambitions of this federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula — in addition to the manufacturing of extra of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide that the U.N. negotiations hope to restrict.

However al-Jaber additionally as soon as led a once-ambitious challenge to have a $22 billion “carbon-neutral” metropolis on Abu Dhabi’s outskirts — an effort later pared again after the worldwide monetary disaster that struck the Emirates arduous starting in 2008. Even as we speak, he serves because the chairman of Masdar, a clear power firm that grew out of the challenge that now operates in additional than 40 nations.

“Sultan al-Jaber has the credentials and background to lean into traits which can be already on going,” stated Ryan Bohl, an Austin, Texas-based Mideast analyst for a risk-intelligence agency referred to as the RANE Community. “Him being an oilman, I don’t suppose that might be that massive of a threat for him.”

The Emirates’ state-run WAM information company made the announcement, noting al-Jaber’s years additionally serving as a local weather envoy.

“This might be a essential 12 months in a essential decade for local weather motion,” WAM quoted al-Jaber as saying. “The UAE is approaching COP28 with a robust sense of duty and the very best potential degree of ambition.”

Learn Extra: How Far Our Climate Goals Have Slipped Out of Reach, In a Single Chart

He added: “We are going to deliver a practical, sensible and solutions-oriented method that delivers transformative progress for local weather and for low-carbon financial development.”

His nomination, nonetheless, drew quick criticism. Harjeet Singh, who’s the top of World Political Technique at Local weather Motion Community Worldwide, stated al-Jaber holding the CEO title on the state oil firm posed “an unprecedented and alarming battle of curiosity.”

“There will be no place for polluters at a local weather convention, least of all presiding over a COP,” Singh stated.

Alice Harrison of World Witness put it much more bluntly: “You wouldn’t invite arms sellers to guide peace talks. So why let oil executives lead local weather talks?”

Annually, the nation internet hosting the U.N. negotiations often called the Convention of the Events — the place COP will get its title — nominates an individual to chair the talks. Hosts usually choose a veteran diplomat because the talks will be extremely tough to steer between competing nations and their pursuits. The nominee’s place as “COP president” is confirmed by delegates initially of the talks, normally with out objections.

The caliber of COP presidents has assorted through the years. Observers extensively noticed Britain’s Alok Sharma as energetic and dedicated to attaining an formidable outcome. Egypt’s Overseas Minister Sameh Shoukry confronted criticism by some contributors for the chaotic and at occasions non-transparent means he presided over final 12 months’s assembly.

In its announcement about al-Jaber, WAM stated the Emirates had invested “greater than $50 billion in renewable power tasks throughout 70 nations, with plans to speculate a minimal of $50 billion over the following decade.” It wasn’t instantly clear the place these figures got here from.

Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, has invested some $3.9 billion since 2018 in renewable power, in line with the New York-based analysis agency World SWF. Masdar listed some $14.3 billion in investments in a 2020 briefing. Masdar didn’t reply to questions on its investments Thursday.

However on the similar time, Mubadala has invested $9.8 billion over the identical interval in oil and fuel tasks, World SWF stated.

The UAE is house to an enormous photo voltaic park in Dubai, in addition to the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, which is the Arabian Peninsula’s solely atomic power supply. Nevertheless it additionally requires huge quantities of power to run the desalination vegetation that introduced inexperienced golf programs to its desert expanses, energy the air conditioners cooling its cavernous malls within the warmth of the summer time and energy heavy industries like aluminum smelters.

The UAE’s clear power insurance policies grew within the mid-2000s as Dubai’s real-estate increase noticed it setting up the world’s tallest constructing and big, palm-shaped archipelagos off its coast. The World Wildlife Fund on the time estimated the UAE had the world’s largest ecological footprint per capita — that means that every of its residents used extra assets on common than these residing in every other nation. The UAE nonetheless ranks excessive on related lists.

Learn Extra: The Selfish Case for Climate Justice

The Masdar Metropolis challenge grew out of that concern of being tarnished, earlier than being pared again.

“By us really doing it and investing cash, we had entry to classes realized that nobody had entry to,” al-Jaber instructed The Related Press in 2010. “Now we have to study, alter, adapt and transfer ahead. We will’t be inflexible.”

The UAE then pivoted Masdar Metropolis right into a campus now internet hosting the U.N.’s Worldwide Renewable Vitality Company and the agency itself into investing into renewables at house and overseas. Joe Biden, simply earlier than leaving workplace as America’s vice chairman, even visited Masdar Metropolis in 2016.

Analysts imagine the Emirates is making an attempt to maximise its earnings earlier than the world more and more turns to renewables. The Emirates itself has pledged to be carbon impartial by 2050 — a goal that is still tough to evaluate and one which authorities haven’t absolutely defined how they’ll attain.

The UAE “have made no bones about being a significant oil and fuel producer and presumably he’s very properly linked to rulers within the nation,” stated Alden Meyer, a longtime local weather speak observer on the environmental suppose tank E3G. “I hope (al-Jaber) has good diplomatic and negotiation abilities and the flexibility to construct consensus and compromise.”

COP28 might be held at Dubai’s Expo Metropolis from Nov. 30 by means of Dec. 12.

— Related Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and Sibi Arasu in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Contact us at letters@time.com.