‘I wasn’t the obvious choice’: meet the oil man tasked with saving the planet

‘I wasn’t the obvious choice’: meet the oil man tasked with saving the planet

When Cop28 starts next month, Sultan Al Jaber will be front and centre. He is the United Arab Emirates’ choice to head up the climate talks – and he also happens to be head of the national oil company. What’s the problem with that, he asks

Expo City, near Dubai, rears out of the desert like a housing estate designed by Disney in a fever dream. Built for the Expo 2020 global fair, identikit skyscrapers surround a vast dome, with a sprinkling of giant steel-and-silicon mushrooms stretching towards the blinding sun. There is a forest of glass needles, a “surreal water feature” like a mini Niagara Falls in black marble, a giant metal falcon and sculptures of running horses. The effect is both beautiful and bewildering.

It’s here, amid the imported palm trees and concrete flowers, that the most important meeting yet on the future of the global climate will soon take place. Cop28 will gather the heads of state and government from a potential 196 countries to draw up an escape plan for a world on fire. Global heating has been increasing in severity for years, but this summer there were impacts no one could ignore.