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COP28 summit will be first global assessment of Paris
Agreement
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Summit host UAE aims to increase its oil production
capacity
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Oil and gas representatives to be present at Dubai talks
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Thunberg called Jaber’s appointment ‘completely
ridiculous’
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Supporters say he is a realist
By Maha El Dahan
DUBAI, Nov 23 (Reuters) – Sultan al-Jaber, the United
Arab Emirates oil chief executive and leader of COP28 climate
talks, has a formidable reputation for earnestly pursuing
results.
His position as leader of state energy giant ADNOC has
alarmed environmental critics concerned over his commitment to
maintaining a role for fossil fuels in the energy transition,
but his supporters say he has an ability to get things done and
straddle divides that will deliver climate action.
When marathon deliberations in Egypt’s picturesque city of
Aswan in October struggled to reach an agreement on a fund to
help countries recover from damage caused by climate change,
Jaber leapt in.
In a virtual intervention, he told the 24-member U.N.
committee debating the fund that billions of lives depended on
getting a deal.
Jaber’s message to the delegates made very clear he would
not accept failure.
“You could say that he used the notion of the hard deadline
to help bang heads,” Avinash Persaud, negotiator for Barbados,
who was a member of the technical committee and present at the
meeting, told Reuters.
The stakes were high. Climate funding has caused bitter
divisions between developed countries held largely responsible
for global warming and poorer countries that are the most
vulnerable to its consequences.
Another failure to agree on what is known as the “loss and
damage” fund could derail discussions at COP28, which takes
place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in Dubai. After a year of extreme
heat, droughts, wildfires and floods, the U.N. talks will be the
first global assessment of progress since the landmark Paris
Agreement in 2015.
The October negotiations were supposedly the last chance to
reach agreement on the fund, but a fifth extraordinary gathering
took place in Abu Dhabi in November that agreed to make the
World Bank the fund’s interim home and encourage all countries
to contribute.
The UAE is among a handful of high per-capita income
countries that are not obliged to contribute to U.N. climate
funds, but face pressure from European states to do so.
OIL RICHES AND BEYOND
The UAE is a senior member of the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its wealth is built on
oil. It has plans to raise its production capacity to 5 million
barrels per day (bpd) by 2027.
Jaber, born in 1973 in Umm al Quwain, one of the lesser
known emirates, stands out in the UAE for the number of high
positions he holds.
Nicknamed Dr. Sultan, he has a PhD in business and economics
from Britain’s Coventry University. He also studied in the
United States.
In 2006, he was put in charge of Masdar, the UAE’s renewable
energy vehicle, and set off on a global fact-finding mission to
assess obstacles and opportunities.
As part of the tour, he met Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, who was
then president of Iceland, which, drawing on ample geothermal
reserves, has managed to more than meet its energy needs through
renewable sources.
“He told me he had this vision that he wanted to make Abu
Dhabi a centre for a renewable energy transformation,” Grimsson
told Reuters.
“On the face of it, it was almost an absurd proposition. But
there was something in his eyes, and his enthusiasm that made me
believe that he was serious.”
Masdar has investments in over 40 countries and is still
chaired by Jaber, its founding CEO, who since 2016 has also been
the CEO of ADNOC.
NO MORE SILOS?
Jaber’s travels showed him the need to break down silos that
separate various aspects of the renewables industry, such as
research, technology and finance, to get results.
Similarly, as the president of COP28, he has backed an
inclusive approach, so oil and gas representatives, including
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais, will be in Dubai.
Without the inclusion of fossil fuel leaders in the climate
conversation, Jaber says there can be no orderly transition to a
low carbon economy.
The approach has alarmed climate activists.
Greta Thunberg called Jaber’s appointment as
president-designate to COP28 in January “completely ridiculous”,
while former U.S. vice president Al Gore, a long time climate
activist, has said fossil fuel interests have taken over the
U.N. climate process.
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Those who have worked with Jaber have said he is as a
realist who looks towards scientific data and factual evidence
to guide his decision-making.
Jaber says his experience as an oil boss adds to his ability
to leverage solutions.
Two months after being appointed COP28 leader, Jaber in
March flew to Houston to the CERAWeek energy industry event
where he urged the world’s fossil fuel bosses to join the fight
against climate change, borrowing a famous line from a U.S.
astronaut aboard a damaged spacecraft during the Apollo 13
mission in 1970.
“Houston, we have a problem,” Jaber told the nearly 1,000
attendees, urging the industry to bring emissions under control.
He has since worked to make more than 20 companies across
the oil and gas sector and heavy industry agree to commit to
curb emissions at COP28, after convening more than 60 top
executives from the oil and gas, cement, aluminium and other
heavy industries in Abu Dhabi this October.
A final deal on the commitment is expected to be announced
at COP28.
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE
Success at COP28, whose first task will be to formally make
Jaber its president, will depend on achieving collaboration
between the world’ biggest carbon emitters China and the United
States.
Jaber has devoted himself to shuttle diplomacy between the
two and drew on a personal rapport with both U.S. climate envoy
John Kerry and Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua to help align
around significant methane emission reduction commitments.
The even bigger issue of ending the divisions over the
continued role of hydrocarbons, however, has yet to be solved.
Countries, such as the UAE, say coal, oil and natural gas
must have a continued role, combined with technology to capture
their emissions until new energy systems can sustain the world’s
needs.
On the other side of the divide are countries that say
phasing out fossil fuel is the only way to achieve the Paris
goal of limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius
(3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while aiming for a cap of 1.5C.
Jaber has maintained a phase down of fossil fuels is
inevitable and essential, but as part of a comprehensive,
thought-out energy transition plan that takes into account the
circumstances of each country and region.
“One size fits all will not work so we need to be flexible
and agile,” he told Reuters in October.
“We should raise ambition and keep 1.5 as our north star so
no-one loses sight.”
(Additional reporting by Rachna Uppal in Dubai and Valerie
Volcovici; writing by Maha El Dahan; Editing by Michael Georgy
and Barbara Lewis)