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Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said on Monday that the world needs to boost oil production just days before the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) aimed at curbing global warming.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the Gulf countries are boosting capacity, while a senior UAE official said the world’s growing population will need 30 percent more energy by 2050 .
Both insist that oil remains the cornerstone of the energy supply, but say they are working to reduce emissions and increase production from renewable or less polluting resources.
“We and the UAE are increasing our production capacity. We and the UAE are increasing our refining capacity,” Prince Abdulaziz said at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec) in the UAE capital .
“We and the UAE will be exemplary producers: producers of hydrocarbons, but also to achieve all the SDGs,” he added.
Adipec opened more than a week before COP27 opened in Egypt, where representatives from nearly 200 countries will participate in the latest round of climate negotiations.
Last year’s COP26 in the Scottish city of Glasgow finally pledged to keep global warming 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a goal the world is destined to miss on current emissions trends.
Energy production must increase by 2050 to meet the needs of the world’s 9.7 billion people, said Sultan Al Jaber, the UAE’s special envoy on climate change and managing director of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
“If we zeroed out our hydrocarbon investment, we would lose 5 million barrels of oil a year from our current supply due to natural declines,” he said. “This will make the shock we’ve experienced this year feel like a slight tremor. If this year has taught us anything, it’s taught us that energy security is the foundation of all progress.”
“The world needs all the solutions it can get. It’s not oil and gas, it’s not solar, it’s not wind or nuclear, it’s not hydrogen … it’s all of the above,” he added.
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