Sultan Al Jaber, president of the COP28 climate summit, at the talks on Monday. Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press
Al Jaber faces a firestorm over fossil fuels
The Emirati oil executive leading the global climate summit faced intense criticism on Monday over his claim that there was “no science” that shows fossil fuels must be phased out to prevent disastrous levels of global temperature increases.
Sultan Al Jaber, the COP28 president and chief executive of the state-owned oil company Adnoc, said in a newly surfaced video there was “no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phaseout of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.”
Scientists say if temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels, humans would struggle to adapt to increasingly severe storms, drought, heat and rising sea levels.
Al Jaber made the controversial comments two weeks ago, but they only came to light on Sunday when they were reported by The Guardian.
“Please, help me, show me a road map for a phaseout of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves,” Al Jaber told a panel discussion led by Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, who is now a prominent climate advocate.
His remarks set off a firestorm at the climate talks being held in Dubai, known as COP28.
Former Vice President Al Gore, who has called for fossil fuels to be replaced with wind, solar and other renewable energy, assailed Al Jaber.
“From the moment this absurd masquerade began, it was only a matter of time before his preposterous disguise no longer concealed the reality of the most brazen conflict of interest in the history of climate negotiations,” Gore said in an email. “Obviously, the world needs to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible.”
On Monday, a defiant Al Jaber suggested he did not say what he can be heard saying on the video. And he indicated that anyone who claimed otherwise was trying to undermine his leadership of COP28.
In front of a packed and hastily arranged news conference, Al Jaber appeared to take the criticism personally and described his background as an economist and an engineer. “I respect the science in everything I do,” he said.
“I have said over and over that the phase-down and the phaseout of fossil fuels is inevitable,” Al Jaber said.
He insisted that he has called many times for a phase out of fossil fuels and said that his efforts to champion climate change had been ignored by the media.
Al Jaber appeared aggrieved, taking issue with “one statement, taken out of context with misrepresentation and misinterpretation that gets maximum coverage.”
The planet has already warmed about 1.2 degrees since the industrial revolution, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Jim Skea, the chairman of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said on Monday while sitting next to Al Jaber that fossil fuels would need to be “greatly reduced” by 2050 in order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Coal plants without technology to capture and store emissions would need to be phased out completely, he said.
The fossil fuel industry has responded to suggestions of a phaseout by saying that technology could capture and store carbon emissions, which would allow it to continue to operate. But scientists widely agree that the technologies that the oil industry is depending upon, like carbon capture and storage, cannot be deployed at the scale or pace required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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The US pledged an additional $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund to help developing nations adopt clean energy and adapt to climate change, CNN reports.