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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 once led an ambitious project to build a $22 billion “carbon-neutral” city on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi – a project that was scaled back after the 2008 global financial crisis devastated the UAE. Even today, he serves as chairman of Masdar, the clean energy company that grew out of this project and now operates in more than 40 countries.
“Sultan al-Jaber has the qualifications and background to understand the trends that have occurred,” said Ryan Bohl, a Middle East analyst at RANE Network, an Austin, Texas-based risk intelligence firm. “He’s an oilman, and I don’t think it’s going to be that much of a risk for him.”
The UAE’s state-run WAM news agency announced the news, noting that Al-Jaber also served as climate envoy for many years.
“This will be a pivotal year in a pivotal decade for climate action,” al-Jaber was quoted as saying by WAM. “The UAE is approaching COP28 with a strong sense of responsibility and the highest possible ambition.”
“We will take a pragmatic, realistic and solutions-oriented approach to deliver transformative progress on climate and low-carbon economic growth,” he added.
However, his nomination 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 puts it more bluntly: “You don’t invite arms dealers to lead peace talks. So why let oil executives lead climate talks?”
Each year, the country hosting the U.N. negotiations, known as the Conference of the Parties, nominates a person to chair the talks. Hosts usually 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.
In its announcement on al-Jaber, WAM said 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.” Those figures were not immediately clear origin of.
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 listed about $14.3 billion in investments in its 2020 briefing. Masdar did not respond to questions about its investment on Thursday.
But at the same time, the global sovereign wealth fund said Mubadala had invested $9.8 billion in oil and gas projects over the same period.
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 at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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