{"id":12041,"date":"2023-11-24T13:53:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-24T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/24\/despite-criticisms-from-the-west-the-uaes-oil-chief-is-proving-popular-in-the-developing-world\/"},"modified":"2023-11-24T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T13:53:00","slug":"despite-criticisms-from-the-west-the-uaes-oil-chief-is-proving-popular-in-the-developing-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/24\/despite-criticisms-from-the-west-the-uaes-oil-chief-is-proving-popular-in-the-developing-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite criticisms from the West, the UAE\u2019s oil chief is proving popular in the developing world"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Seychelles government <\/strong>announced it would allow a Canadian company\u00a0to explore for oil\u00a0in its waters in September 2022, it said it hoped it would never have to extract the oil. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that whilst we do the exploration, all these promises will be fulfilled,\u201d Ramkalawan said,\u00a0meaning they could leave the oil in the ground. But, he added, \u201cat the end of the day, it\u2019s about survival.\u201d <\/p>\n

While not among the poorest developing countries, the Seychelles highlights a paradox faced by many in the Global South: How to grow their economies and cope with the expenses of climate-fueled disasters they did least to cause, while also responding to international pressure to stop burning fossil fuels. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0into this space that Sultan <\/strong>Al Jaber has stepped \u2014\u00a0the Emirati minister and businessman who will preside over the UN-backed COP28 climate talks in Dubai starting on November 30. <\/p>\n

Al Jaber\u2019s appointment as COP28\u2019s leader has been met with fierce criticism among some media organizations, civil society groups and even politicians in the Global North. That\u2019s\u00a0because, while he serves as the UAE\u2019s climate envoy and head of its renewables company,\u00a0he\u00a0also\u00a0runs the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). More than 100 members of the US Congress and the European Parliament in May called for him to be replaced\u00a0as COP28 president-designate. <\/p>\n

But Al Jaber\u2019s decision to focus on\u00a0increasing finance to help developing countries shift to renewable energy is helping his popularity in the Global South. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe money must flow smoothly and fast to where it needs to go so that the Global South does not have to choose between climate action and development,\u201d Al Jaber told delegates at a\u00a0pre-COP opening ceremony\u00a0in Dubai, in October. <\/p>\n

For some\u00a0leaders, this contrasts with a string of broken promises on finance from developed countries. <\/p>\n

Countries in the West \u201cpromise and don\u2019t\u00a0deliver, but yet\u00a0they tell you \u2018you\u00a0have to keep protecting the planet,\u2019\u201d Ramkalawan\u00a0said. He said the UAE has funded wind and solar plants in the Seychelles,\u00a0adding, \u201cI think the commitment of the UAE speaks volumes.\u201d <\/p>\n

Under Al Jaber\u2019s leadership at the\u00a0pre-COP28\u00a0talks, countries reached an agreement on how to run a \u201closs and damage\u201d fund that would provide\u00a0some money to developing countries to pay for the outsized impacts of climate change they have experienced. <\/p>\n

It was a welcome development for some after the rich world had for two years failed to\u00a0deliver the annual $100 billion\u00a0to developing nations that it agreed\u00a0back in 2009. That money was supposed to reach the most climate-vulnerable countries by 2020 to help them tackle and adapt to the climate crisis. Even though the goal was finally reached in 2022,\u00a0developing nations say it\u2019s\u00a0nowhere near enough. <\/p>\n

But many critics have cited the UAE\u2019s plans to expand production of planet-heating fossil fuels as a conflict of interest in the COP28 talks. <\/p>\n

ADNOC plans to invest $150 billion\u00a0into scaling up its operations over the next five years. It is currently expanding its production capacity, aiming for 5 million barrels of oil a day by 2027, while\u00a0the UAE government has said it plans to extract its very last barrel of oil 50 years from now, when its reserves are projected to dry up. That\u2019s despite scientists saying society should be winding down oil and gas use now. <\/p>\n

Struggling to keep up<\/h2>\n

Like the Seychelles, Kenya too is facing the challenge of how to\u00a0cope with the expenses of climate-fueled disasters\u00a0and rapidly scale up renewable energy without adequate funding. <\/p>\n

The UAE recently pledged $4.5 billion\u00a0to finance clean energy projects across Africa. And in June, Masdar \u2014 <\/strong>the state-owned renewables firm founded by Al Jaber \u2014 was part of a group that signed a\u00a0deal worth $10 billion to develop a 10GW wind farm in Egypt, billed as the biggest on\u00a0the continent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are\u00a0spending inordinate resources to try and manage the effects of climate change,\u201d Ruto said. He referred to Kenya\u2019s catastrophic multi-year drought, which scientists found was made\u00a0100 times more likely\u00a0by the burning of planet-heating fossil fuels. <\/p>\n

Even if the Global North has <\/strong>finally delivered the promised $100 billion of annual funding, it\u2019s\u00a0still a drop in the ocean compared to what some experts say is needed to help developing countries cope with the escalating impacts of the climate crisis and transform energy systems. A 2022 UN-backed report\u00a0calculated developing countries will need about $2 trillion\u00a0a year by 2030. <\/p>\n

Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy for the Climate Action Network, said the reality is Western nations have not delivered. \u00a0\u201cWe have seen the West only being extractive and very opportunistic, and actually kept developing countries dependent on fossil fuels,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

But others are more\u00a0skeptical. <\/p>\n

Sanim Vakil, the director of the Middle East North Africa Program at Chatham House, said ultimately, the\u00a0UAE is looking to protect its interests in the energy transition. <\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the COP28 team was committed to \u201cambitious, achievable, and substantial action,\u201d which means, \u201cholding back emissions, not progress, by ensuring energy security, accessibility, and affordability. Otherwise, we risk slowing down socio-economic progress and undermining support for ambitious climate action.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Seychelles government announced it would allow a Canadian company\u00a0to explore for oil\u00a0in its waters in September 2022, it said it hoped it would never have to extract the oil. \u201cWe\u2019re hoping that whilst we do the exploration, all these promises will be fulfilled,\u201d Ramkalawan said,\u00a0meaning they could leave the oil in the ground. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12041","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}