The COP28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber has\u00a0strongly denied\u00a0accusations that his team sought to use the international climate talks in Dubai to strike fossil fuel deals for the UAE\u2019s state-owned oil and gas company. <\/p>\n
Several of the documents detailed suggestions to offer new oil and gas projects to visiting officials, which would benefit the UAE. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese allegations are false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate,\u201d he said at a press conference in Dubai on Wednesday, when asked for comment by a reporter.\ufeff \u201cAnd it\u2019s an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency.\u201d <\/p>\n
Al Jaber, his office and the UAE have come under widespread criticism, particularly from Western media and civil society groups, for appointing its top oil executive to preside over the talks, which begin Thursday and are expected to address ways to ramp down fossil fuel use, the primary driver of the climate crisis. <\/p>\n
Al Jaber\u2019s denial took more than three minutes, during which he expressed his frustration at the allegations and criticisms around his connections to the oil and gas industry. He also defended the success of the UAE\u2019s rapid economic development, as well as its relationships with foreign governments and businesses. <\/p>\n
\u201cLet me ask you a question: Do you think the UAE, or myself, will need the COP, or the COP presidency, to go and establish business deals or commercial relationships?\u201d\u00a0Al Jaber asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis country over the past 50 years has been built around its ability to build bridges and to create relationships and partnerships.\u201d <\/p>\n
Al Jaber emphasized that all of his meetings with officials were squarely focused on his COP28 agenda. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery meeting I have conducted with every government or any other stakeholder has always been centered around one thing and one thing only, and that is my COP28 agenda and how we can collectively, for the first time ever, adopt a mindset that is centered around implementation and action to keep 1.5 within reach,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Paris Agreement stated that the world should try to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Passing that threshold, scientists say, will make it harder for life on Earth to adapt. <\/p>\n
He added that he was often given conflicting advice on whether he should engage with oil and gas companies in his role. <\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I am told \u2018you need to engage with governments and with oil and gas companies to put pressure.\u2019 And sometimes I\u2019m told \u2018you can\u2019t do that,\u2019\u201d\u00a0he said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re damned if we do, we\u2019re damned if we don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n
After his denial, he thanked the reporter who asked him for comment on the allegations. \u201cI feel much better,\u201d he said, concluding his remarks. <\/p>\n
Al Jaber is currently overseeing an expansion in ADNOC\u2019s oil and gas production. The company is in the midst of hiking its capacity from 4 million barrels a day, its level in 2022, to 5 million by 2027. <\/p>\n\n
The COP28 president-designate Sultan Al Jaber has\u00a0strongly denied\u00a0accusations that his team sought to use the international climate talks in Dubai to strike fossil fuel deals for the UAE\u2019s state-owned oil and gas company. Several of the documents detailed suggestions to offer new oil and gas projects to visiting officials, which would benefit the UAE. \u201cThese <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12283,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12282","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\/12282","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=12282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}