Oil for Climate Action

Oil for Climate Action

International and Arab News

The appointment of Sultan Al Jaber to lead the 28th climate summit this year unleashed criticism of some Western media, especially in Britain, and fueled skepticism among environmental activists. While the reaction of most environmental and climate action groups is driven by genuine concern, the organized campaigns led by major British media carried a lot of malice, not to mention certainly inconsistent with the journalistic ethics and standards they claim to revere.

Reports and articles in the BBC and The Guardian criticized the relationship of Al Jaber, alongside some of those he chose to help him run the climate summit office, with the UAE oil sector, calling this a conflict of interest. This is a highly prejudicial oversimplification, as it ignores the economic, scientific and cultural characteristics of a country in which development was based on investing its oil wealth. Had those in objection looked more closely, they would have realized that what the UAE did was to bring the oil and gas sector closer to environment and climate action, not the other way around.

It is true that Sultan Al Jaber is the CEO of ADNOC, but his appointment as President-Designate of COP 28 is not the same