2023-11-30 15:54:17
Can you be president of a COP while running one of the largest oil companies on the planet? By designating Sultan al-Jaber as president of COP28, the United Arab Emirates had provoked the ire of environmental defenders. However, at the opening of this new session of climate negotiations, the ambition displayed by the organizers is clear: this COP must be historic, including on the issue of fossil fuels.
This article was initially published in January 2023, upon the announcement of the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber as president of COP28.
COP28 opened Thursday, November 30 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For two weeks, at the edge of the desert, the site of the 2020 Universal Exhibition becomes the beating heart of climate diplomacy. In total, more than 70,000 people are expected, an unprecedented crowd.
However, for several months, the choice of the Emirates – a petromonarchy which ranks seventh in the world oil producer – as the host country of this great rally has questioned and worried environmental defenders while the combustion of oil, gas or Coal accounts for more than 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This concern was reinforced by the announcement, in January, of the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the national oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) as president of the COP.
This is the first time that the president of an oil group has exercised such responsibility in climate negotiations. “This disappointed us a lot and we are very worried regarding the smooth running of this COP,” reacted in January 2023 Marine Pouget, in charge of international issues at the NGO Climate Network Action. “Especially since COP28 was supposed to be crucial. It was the first ‘global stocktaking COP’, supposed to assess countries’ climate commitments.”
From fossil fuels to renewable energies
However, on the side of the United Arab Emirates, the ambition displayed is clear: to make this COP28 a COP as historic as that of Paris in 2015, and thus show itself as a good student of the climate in the region.
If the country is the sixth largest emitter of CO2 per capita on the planet, with 22 tonnes per year per person – placing itself just behind Qatar, Kuwait and Brunei according to the Global Carbon Project –, it has been trying for several years to get rid of its image as a big polluter. It was, for example, the first Gulf country to announce that it wanted to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. A promise which, to be kept, would require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to two tonnes per person.
And despite the controversies that his appointment aroused, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber appeared to be the ideal candidate to carry out Abu Dhabi’s ambitions. At 50, he is no stranger to climate negotiations: the Emirates’ special envoy for climate, a position he had already held between 2010 and 2016, he was head of his country’s delegation to COP26 in Glasgow. , and at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. In 2009, he was also appointed to the advisory group on energy and climate change at the UN by the secretary-general at the time, Ban Ki-moon.
But above all, he is the face of the development of renewable energies in the country. He founded in 2006 Masdar, a company specializing in this issue, at the initiative, in particular, of Masdar City, a green urban zone located in Abu Dhabi. A city which has also been home to the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) for several years. In 2012, this colossal project earned Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber the designated “champion of the Earth” by the UN in the “entrepreneurial vision” category.
“The United Arab Emirates understood quite early the need to diversify their economy. They know that their oil resources are not infinite,” explains Alexandre Kazerouni, researcher at the École Normale Supérieure, specialist in the Gulf and author of the book. “The Mirror of the Sheikhs” (PUF ed.).”Especially since, in addition to its exports, the country is itself a large consumer of fossil fuels. Its inhabitants, for example, have great difficulty getting by without air conditioning.”
Global warming is, however, a particularly important subject for this desert country: according to a study published in 2021certain regions of the Gulf, where temperatures sometimes approach 50°C in summer, might become unlivable by the end of the century.
International influence
“Beyond the ecological question, the challenge for the Emirati government is above all financial. It is also an opportunity to increase the country’s international influence,” continues Alexandre Kazerouni. “Moreover, this development of renewable energies did not start at any time: it was concomitant with the installation of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the annex of the French University of the Sorbonne and the international circuit of Formula 1. Culture, education, sport and the environment… So many levers to bring the country closer to its Western partners despite political differences.”
And the bet seems on track to succeed. According to the daily Les Échos, Masdar, which has since established itself as the spearhead of the Emirates’ strategy for their energy transition, today operates in around forty countries for projects with a total value of more than 18 billion euros. The company alone currently produces 20 gigawatts of green electricity, with the ambition of increasing this figure to 100 before 2030. At the end of December, it also announced a partnership with the German gas giant Uniper for construction, in United Arab Emirates, a green hydrogen plant, produced from water and electricity from renewable energies.
In June 2022, the Wall Street Journal thus noted the ongoing paradox in the petromonarchy, which remains the world’s seventh largest oil producer. “The hottest investor in renewable energy is a major oil producer,” the headline read.
“The future is coming, but it’s not here yet”
Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber thus symbolizes the entire contradiction at work in this country, which is initiating an energy transition but which remains very dependent on fossil fuels. While a third of the kingdom’s GDP still comes from hydrocarbons, the United Arab Emirates categorically refuses to reduce its production of fossil fuels and calls for a “gradual” exit from it. To “meet global demand”, they plan to further increase their crude oil production capacity from 3.5 million barrels per day to 5 million in 2030, according to the United States Energy Information Administration.
At the opening of an annual oil conference in 2021, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber advocated “pragmatism”, insisting on “investing $600 billion every year in oil until 2030, to satisfy expected global demand” . “Yes, renewable energies are developing rapidly. But gas and oil remain the largest energies in the energy mix and will be for decades. The future is coming, but it is not here yet. We cannot simply disconnect today’s system,” he insisted.
Comments reiterated Thursday, November 30 at the opening of COP28. “We need to make sure we include the role of fossil fuels. I know there are strong opinions on the idea of including formulas on fossil and renewable energy in the negotiated text,” he said. insisted.
It remains to be seen whether he will be able to maneuver to have an ambitious text adopted by the nearly 200 states participating in COP28. Dozens of countries have already announced that they want to include an explicit call to reduce fossil fuels, something no COP has ever achieved.
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