Director for seven years. Adnok, the oil company of the emirate of Abu Dhabi and the twelfth largest in the world. But it also sets plans for the Climate Summit, which begins this Thursday at Dubaileisure capital United Arab Emirates. The dual role of player and referee, which has been marked by criticism and concerns since his appointment as head of the COP28: Sultan al-Jaber, the man who is presiding over negotiations aimed at cutting carbon dioxide emissions that cause climate change, is at the helm of a company that boasts the fifth-largest oil and gas expansion plan on the planet. An equation that seems impossible to reconcile in a year of heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods that has starkly demonstrated the devastating effects of global warming.

“It’s a huge conflict of interest for the head of an oil company to chair global climate talks,” he replies in a conversation with Independent Richard Piercehousedirector of environment Human Rights Watch. Adding to the initial suspicions sown by his election in January, documents were leaked in the final stages of preparations for COP28 that suggested the United Arab Emirates planned to use the annual meeting, which runs until December 12, to seal oil and gas agreements. gas.

Under suspicion

This Wednesday, on the eve of the start, Al Jaber, who is also presiding Masdar, an Emirati renewable energy company with investments in more than 40 countries, denies that was its intention. “These are false, incorrect and inaccurate accusations. This is an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 Presidency. Let me ask you a question. Do you think the Emirates or I will need a COP or a COP presidency to negotiate trade agreements or trade relations? Over the last 50 years, this country has been built on the ability to build bridges and create relationships and partnerships. “No one in this world has mastered the ability to create mutually beneficial relationships and fruitful and productive partnerships like this small country and this young nation,” he said.

Adnoc is the largest emitting company in the world

In the midst of a hurricane that is nothing new, Al Jaber – a 50-year-old doctor of economics and business from Britain’s Coventry University – said he was committed to “only one thing”: “My agenda for COP28 is how we can collectively Adopt, for the first time in history, a mindset focused on implementation and action to maintain 1.5 [el objetivo marcado en el Acuerdo de París de 2015 de conseguir que la temperatura global no supere el 1,5ºC respecto a los niveles preindustriales] achieve. Sometimes I’m told to talk to governments and oil and gas companies to put pressure on them, and sometimes I’m told it can’t be done. So we’ll be damned if we do it, but also damned if we don’t. Please for once respect who we are, what we have achieved over the years, and the fact that we have been clear, open, honest and transparent about how we are going to implement this COP process.”

Statements that do not convince environmental organizations, including in light of the decisions Jaber made as head of the Emirates oil company. In accordance with Global Coal Exit Listthe list was prepared by a German NGO UrgewaldAbu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has the fifth-largest oil and gas expansion plan on the planet. Production forecasts for the next seven years are equivalent to 9 billion barrels of oil. “If we look at the International Energy Agency’s net-zero emissions scenario, which charts the path to maintaining the Paris 1.5°C limit, Adnoc is the company with the largest excess emissions in the world: 8.3 billion barrels of oil that the company’s production plans have not agreed upon with Paris,” they told a newspaper from Urgewald.

The movement, which monitors and investigates global oil companies, is also watching with concern the “dual role” of Al Jaber, who is from Umm al-Quwain, one of the seven emirates that make up the federation. “We are concerned that their dual roles create a glaring and insurmountable conflict of interest that jeopardizes global climate negotiations. The information coming from the President of the Constitutional Court in recent months points to weak and voluntary commitments that are not what our increasingly hot planet needs,” they emphasize.

“Houston we have a problem”

In response to those who are suspicious of his actions, Jaber argues that no one but him can convince the oil lobby. He recalls that two months after he was entrusted with the presidency of COP28, he went to Houston (USA) to attend an event organized by the energy industry. In front of thousands in attendance, including some fossil fuel executives, the Emirati called on his people to control emissions. “Houston, we have a problem,” he said, referencing the famous line from the astronaut aboard the spacecraft that was damaged during the 1970 Apollo 13 mission. “Never in history has a CC president come into contact with the oil industry,” he recently told a British newspaper The keeper. “It is not true that the oil and gas and high-emissions industries do not sit at the same table. You must bring them all together. We need to rethink this relationship between producers and consumers. “We need this comprehensive approach,” he added.

A possibilist approach that embraces, with explicit reservations, Santiago Woollandsclimate policy analyst at New Climate Institute. “There are two possible scenarios: first, there may be a conflict of interest for the head of Adnoc as the president of the Constitutional Court. If you want to do a good job as COP President, you should support the movement to end the use of fossil fuels. However, this conflicts with his interests as a representative of one of the world’s largest oil companies, which has an interest in continuing to produce and sell fossil fuels for as long as possible. If Adnock’s commercial interests win, we won’t see much movement from the CC presidency,” he explains in a conversation with this newspaper.

The second, however, suggests that “the oil states and big oil companies also need to move, and to do this it will be important that the people within them are committed to the necessary changes.” someone who has deep knowledge of the fossil fuel world and knows how to drive change from within. Only at the end of the COP will we know which of these scenarios will become a reality,” admits Woollands. Leaked documents indicating the use of the Adnoc Summit to finalize new contracts does not provide grounds for the most encouraging forecasts. “Given that even during climate negotiations it is already meetings are scheduled to strike deals on gas and oil, this raises doubts about the commitments that may be on these issues. “What we most want to see on the agenda, for example, is an agreement to divest from fossil fuels.”

The challenge is to demonstrate your commitment.

The next two weeks, the latest letter and the intensity of what was agreed will serve to determine the impact that Jaber – in his unusual role as judge and litigant – will have on the climate summit, which is being held for the second time in the Middle East, following the previous edition in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh. “We need to close the gap between ambition and action. Those who promised must deliver. “Those who committed must act,” he asked this Wednesday. “I will hold all countries and all stakeholders accountable to ensuring that the 1.5°C warming target is within our reach,” he warned.

I will hold all countries and all stakeholders accountable to keeping the 1.5°C target within our reach.

According to Woollands, “the ideal scenario would be a clear and unambiguous response from the leadership of the Constitutional Court in the context of a record year for temperatures that puts the world in emergency mode.” “A more realistic, but still positive, scenario would be that this conference of the parties would reach clear agreements on global concepts for achieving certain goals, such as agreeing to end the use of fossil fuels, tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency, or agreeing to phase out coal use. And also, and this is very important, that agreements are reached on the financing of these goals, especially in developing countries,” he lists.

During his tenure as COP28 President, Al Jaber tried to unite positions between China and E.United States, the largest emitters of carbon dioxide in the world. In October, he brought together more than 60 executives from the oil, gas, cement and aluminum industries in Abu Dhabi to try to reach an agreement to cut emissions. Their challenge remains to push for an end to the use of fossil fuels in the face of reluctance from countries such as the Emirates, which favor preserving them using technologies to capture their emissions while alternative energy sources are developed and replace them.

“A one-size-fits-all model will not work, so we must be flexible and nimble. We must increase our ambitions and keep 1.5 as our northern star so that no one loses sight of it,” Al Jaber emphasizes. According to environmentalists such as Piercehouse, “there is a silver lining to this unfortunate situation”: “The role of the fossil fuel industry is being brought into focus. The question now is whether countries will come to the Emirates ready to confront this problem and call for a phase-out of fossil fuels in the outcome document.”