OPEC Demands ‘Big Picture’ Approach To Oil As COP 28 Rejects Conflict Accusations

“Keeping 1.5°C alive is a top priority and it will cut across everything I do” – Sultan Al Jaber.

According to a 2021 assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], the problem is that the narrow window to limit warming at 1.5°C—the goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement—is rapidly closing, with only about a dozen years remaining at humanity’s current rate of emissions before it shuts. Plus, analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that the 1.5°C goal is only possible by phasing out fossil fuel development now.

Keeping oil in the "Big Picture," the report noted, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its Allies (OPEC+), of which the UAE is a member and the third-largest producer, has rejected the IEA's findings, accusing the agency of being biassed in its views on climate change.That would be a new experience for the Paris-based agency, which has previously faced criticism for ignoring 1.5°C pathways and underestimating the rise of low-carbon energy.

OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais recently urged countries to invest much more in oil to meet the world’s future energy needs, according to BNN Bloomberg.

The oil and gas industry has been "plagued by several years of chronic underinvestment," he said last weekend at an energy conference in Cairo, though data shows that government support for fossil fuels worldwide almost doubled to $697.2 billion in 2021, up from $362.4 billion in 2020.

According to the report, ADNOC chair since 2016, Al Jaber is "far from your average oil executive," according to Karim Elgendy, a fellow on Middle East environmental issues at Chatham House."He has been spearheading the UAE’s climate action well before and during his tenure as the head of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company."

Al Jaber also happens to be the founder and CEO of the UAE’s global renewable investment company, Masdar, which is heavily involved in the green transition. He told Reuters that it was that experience that got him the lead role at ADNOC, with a mandate to "transform, decarbonize, and future-proof" the oil company.

According to the report, Masdar and Cairo will also be partnering on green hydrogen projects, for a combined electrolyzer capacity of 4 GW by 2030, with an annual output of 480,000 t of green hydrogen in the works. ADNOC is Masdar’s main partner in its green hydrogen ambitions.

But none of this means tightening the crude oil spigot.

ADNOC currently pumps approximately 3.4 million barrels of crude per day and plans to increase that figure to five million barrels by 2027, rather than 2030 as previously planned.To this end, the oil company will be investing $150 billion, up $23 billion from last year’s financing target, notes OilPrice.

"Among the officials are two former ADNOC engineers who will act as negotiators on behalf of the UAE at the conference, despite their LinkedIn profiles suggesting they may not have a background in international climate diplomacy," the Guardian wrote. Meanwhile, senior executives at the oil company have been "tasked with supporting" the UAE’s role as hosts of this year’s conference.

ADNOC has also been seeking to hire someone who could "liaise between the COP 28 office and relevant UAE embassies abroad," according to a job posting.

It is this "potential for blurred lines" between the UAE’s fossil industry and the COP team that is sparking concern, writes the Guardian.

The report further stated, "Plus, fossil revenue underwrites the UAE’s ability to provide jobs for citizens and invest in its economic diversification plans—including renewable energy projects themselves," reports the Times. And yet, it is vowing to work "hand in hand" with the renewable industry, with Al Jaber using that exact phrase in a mid-January meeting with the Abu Dhabi-based International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

According to Common Dreams, "Climate organisations around the world are having none of it."

Ten days after Al Jaber’s meeting with IRENA, the Kick Big Polluters Out network wrote a letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, and all parties to the UNFCCC, decrying Al Jaber’s appointment.

"There is no honour in appointing a fossil fuel executive who profits immensely from fueling the climate crisis to oversee the global response to climate change," the network said. The fact that "such a move could ever be seen to be legitimate amidst an intensifying climate crisis where millions of lives and ecosystems are on the line" exemplifies just how insidious the Big Polluters’ stranglehold over climate policy is.

Gadir Lavadenz of the Demand Climate Justice campaign said polluters "cannot be placed on a leadership pedestal" and warned that the UNFCCC "is undermining its already weak international trust year after year."

report concluded, talking about how the UAE can build trust, A COP presidency is, above all, about political leadership, Figueres wrote in a New Statesman op-ed, describing such leadership as Al Jaber’s to seize or forfeit.

She told Al Jaber in a letter that she was thankful for him leading sustainability efforts in his own country and helping to build bridges around the world. She also told him to "rise above his work on the national stage and embrace his new international responsibilities."

She asked the UAE to do the same, suggesting that some ways to become a "model climate leader" could be:

• Changing from a strategic vision that doesn't work with a 1.5° future to a net-zero goal that is written into law for 2050;
• committing to support Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s proposal to direct 1% of fossil profits to a global loss and damage fund; and
• Supporting a "phase-down of fossil fuels around the world" and making sure that 2023 is a turning point where countries step up their climate goals.