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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates on Thursday named a seasoned technocrat who both leads Abu Dhabi’s state-run oil company and oversees its renewable energy efforts to an upcoming meeting in Dubai. The head of the UN climate talks, stressed the oil producer’s future balancing act.
Authorities nominate Sultan al-Jaber, a trusted confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who CEO of ADNOC. The company pumps about 4 million barrels per day of crude oil and hopes to expand to 5 million barrels per day.
Those revenues fuel the ambitions of the coalition of seven emirates in the Arabian Peninsula — and the production of more heat-trapping carbon dioxide that U.N. negotiations hope to limit.
But al-Jaber also led an ambitious project to build a $22 billion “carbon-neutral” city on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi — an effort that was later scaled back after the 2008 global financial crisis devastated the UAE. Even today, he serves as chairman of Masdar, a clean energy company that grew out of that project.
“Sultan al-Jaber has the qualifications and the background to understand the trends that have happened,” said Ryan Bohl, a Middle East analyst at a risk intelligence firm called RANE Network. There would be that much risk.”
“This will be a pivotal year in a pivotal decade for climate action,” the UAE’s state-run WAM quoted al-Jabir, who served as climate envoy for many years. He called for a “pragmatic, realistic and solutions-oriented approach” to Limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050. Scientists say such restrictions could avoid or at least mitigate some of the most catastrophic harms of future climate change.
Al-Jaber’s nomination, however, drew immediate criticism. Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy at the International Climate Action Network, said al-Jaber’s role as chief executive of a state-owned oil company constituted an “unprecedented and worrying conflict of interest”.
“There is no place for a polluter at a climate conference, especially chairing a COP,” Singh said.
Alice Harrison of Global Witness was more blunt: “You don’t invite arms dealers to lead the peace talks. So why would you let the oil executives lead the climate talks?” “Deeply appalled,” adding: “This sets a dangerous precedent that jeopardizes the UAE’s credibility and trust in them.”
Each year, the country hosting the U.N. negotiations, known as the Conference of the Parties, nominates a person to chair the talks. Hosts typically choose an experienced diplomat because navigating talks between competing countries and their interests is difficult. The nominee’s position as “COP Chair” is confirmed by delegates at the beginning of talks, usually without objection.
Over the years, the capacities of the COP chairs have varied. Britain’s Alok Sharma is widely seen by observers as energetic and committed to achieving ambitious results. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was criticized by some participants for the chaotic and sometimes opaque manner in which he chaired last year’s meeting.
The UAE has “invested more than $50 billion in renewable energy projects in 70 countries and plans to spend at least $50 billion over the next decade,” WAM said. It was unclear where those figures came from.
Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has invested about $3.9 billion in renewable energy since 2018, according to New York-based research firm Global SWF. Masdar’s investment in 2020 is US$14.3 billion. Masdar did not respond to questions about its investment on Thursday.
By comparison, Mubadala invested $9.8 billion in oil and gas projects during the same period, Global SWF said.
The UAE has a huge solar park in Dubai, as well as the Barakah nuclear power plant, the only source of atomic energy in the Arabian Peninsula. But it also takes a lot of energy to run the desalination plants that bring green golf courses to vast deserts, power air conditioning that cools cavernous shopping malls during the hot summer months and power aluminum smelters and other heavy industries to provide power.
The UAE’s clean energy policy took off in the mid-2000s, as Dubai’s real estate boom saw it build the world’s tallest buildings and giant palm-shaped archipelago on its shores. At the time, the World Wildlife Fund estimated that the UAE had the world’s largest per capita ecological footprint—meaning it used more resources per inhabitant than residents of any other country. The UAE remains high on similar lists.
The Masdar City project arose from concerns of being tarnished before it was cut.
al-Jaber told the Associated Press in 2010: “Through our actions and our investments, we have learned lessons that no one else has. We must learn, adjust, adapt and move forward.” We cannot be rigid. “
The UAE then turned Masdar City into a campus, which is now home to the United Nations’ International Renewable Energy Agency, and the company itself is investing in renewable energy at home and abroad. Joe Biden even visited Masdar City in 2016, just before stepping down as US vice president.
Analysts believe the UAE is trying to maximize profits before the world increasingly turns to renewable energy. The UAE itself has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050 – a goal that remains difficult to assess, and authorities have yet to fully explain how they will achieve it.
Alden Meyer, a longtime climate talk watcher at environmental think tank E3G, said the UAE “has made no secret of presenting itself as a major oil and gas producer, and he’s probably close to the country’s rulers”. “I expect (al-Jaber) to have good diplomatic and negotiation skills and the ability to build consensus and compromise.”
COP28 will be held in Dubai Expo City from November 30th to December 12th.
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Associated Press writers Frank Jordans in Berlin and Sibi Arasu in New Delhi contributed to this report.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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