Straddling that split is one man: Sultan al-Jaber.
He founded the renewable energy company, Masdar, which has invested billions of dollars in zero-emissions energy technologies like wind and solar power across 40 countries. Simultaneously, he directs Adnoc, the national oil company, a behemoth that makes Masdar look minuscule. Adnoc pumps millions of barrels of oil per day and aims to spend $150 billion over the next five years, mostly to ramp up its output.
And this year, the United Nations has in effect vested Mr. al-Jaber with one of humanity’s most pressing tasks: steering its annual global climate negotiations, which are set to begin in November in Dubai.
Those increasingly urgent talks are the world’s main forum to address how to limit global warming. The scientific consensus, that preventing runaway climate change must be done largely by bring a rapid end to the fossil fuel era, has made the decision to have Mr. al-Jaber preside over the summit intensely controversial.
In an interview, Mr. al-Jaber, 49, said he was the perfect fit for the job.
Over six months of preparation for the summit, known as COP28, Mr. al-Jaber said, he has consulted everyone from academicians to financiers to Indigenous leaders to fellow oil executives to understand why past summits have yielded such little progress.
His conclusion was that the fossil fuel industry had little to do with it.
“That was not one of the findings,” he said. Instead, he said, progress was stymied because climate advocates and fossil fuel interests vilified each other. “Why are we fighting industries? Fighting emissions should focus on reducing emissions across the board, whether it’s oil and gas, whether it’s industry, regardless of what it is.”
Advocates for bold climate action have been outraged by his approach, which rests on bringing fossil fuel companies to the table, and which he claims will break that cycle of recrimination. A group of 133 U.S. Senators and European Union lawmakers signed a letter this year calling for him to be replaced.
Multinational fossil fuel companies have a well-documented track record of countering climate science through misinformation and lobbying campaigns, even as now-public internal documents have revealed they were well aware of the effects of their products on the atmosphere.
Al Jaber does have green credentials. He’s been the UAE’s special climate envoy since 2010 and was the founding CEO of Masdar. It has ambitions to be the biggest green-energy company in the world, working toward 100 gigawatts of renewable capacity by 2030. Part of his mandate at ADNOC, which has a 24% stake in Masdar, is to drive the oil giant’s $15 billion decarbonization strategy.
Yet under Al Jaber’s leadership, ADNOC plans to increase its oil production to 5 million barrels a day by 2027 from 3 million. This jibes with the UAE climate envoy office’s views on the energy transition. It doesn’t see climate action as a matter of flipping a switch on fossil fuels. With energy demand increasing, some see natural gas and oil as a way to bridge the gap and maintain energy security while renewable infrastructure is put into place.
In a statement on his COP28 appointment, Al Jaber says he’ll bring “a pragmatic, realistic and solutions-orientated approach” to the annual gathering. It might be pragmatic, but it still sets the pace for change — which scientists agree needs to be rapid — to slow. And many stakeholders will not see “more oil” as a reasonable solution, especially when the president setting the COP agenda has a commercial interest in growing his oil business for years to come.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network International, warns Al Jaber being both COP28 president and ADNOC CEO “will be tantamount to a full scale capture of the UN climate talks by a petrostate national oil company and its associated fossil fuel lobbyists.” It’s not hard to imagine the controversy becoming the main story of COP28. That may not be the impression the UAE wants to make, and it’s not conducive to the kind of climate meeting advocates want to have.
Between being a government minister, CEO, chairman and now president for COP28, Al Jaber is doing four full-time jobs. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the president of COP27, faced criticism that he underestimated the time and effort required for the role, contributing to prolonged negotiations and a lack of bold agreements.
Dubai overnight lows did not drop below 90°F in September 2023, and it isn’t a dry heat.