Criticism, that the UAE’s leadership this year of annual UN climate talks conflicted with its position as one of the world’s biggest producers of oil, was “surprising” and unfounded, a senior leader of the COP presidency told The Hindu in an interview on Friday.
The 28th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP), set to unfurl over two weeks in Dubai next month, where heads of state, business delegations, climate and energy think tanks from over 190 countries converge annually to negotiate responsibility for keeping global temperatures from rising above 1.5C this year, has stirred a unique controversy centred around its president, Sultan Al-Jaber. His position as head of one of the world’s largest oil companies, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has drawn criticism — primarily from the West — that he would as COP President be less inclined to push the world away from fossil fuels.
“We were quite surprised,” Majid Al-Suwaidi, Director-General, COP-28, and a senior member of the presidency team, told The Hindu. “This isn’t the first time that a COP President comes from a country that’s a fossil fuel producing one and such criticism has never been raised before. We have for decades followed a path of development that minimises wastage. We were once an economy that relied on pearl-diving that was destroyed once the Japanese invented the artificial pearl. We have always known that the development of a new technology can take away [an economy based on a natural resource]. We are not shy of the fact that we are an oil-and-gas producing company. That’s something that has built our country. But we need to transition to a future economy and we have started this many years ago. Our economy is today 70% not-oil-and-gas. People criticised us when we built our tourism economy, when we made Masdar (renewable energy company). We are used to criticism but we act and deliver. Our President [of the UAE] has asked us to celebrate the day we deliver our last barrel of oil.”
