Time is running out for the UAE to save its COP28

Time is running out for the UAE to save its COP28

The United Arab Emirates is not the first petrostate to host a UN climate COP conference, nor the first authoritarian regime. Sultan al-Jaber, the oil executive it has picked to be president of this year’s COP28 meeting in Dubai, is likewise not the first in the role to have spent years advancing his nation’s fossil fuel interests. But the depth of discontent over the UAE’s handling of COP28 is raising questions about whether it is up to the job.

With just over five months to go before the meeting starts, Abu Dhabi has much more to do to quell the misgivings that last month led more than 130 US and EU legislators to call for Jaber’s removal. The lawmakers’ move reflects wider public unease. Jaber is to oversee COP28at the same time as running one of the world’s largest oil and gas groups, the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Adnoc — which last year sped up plansto increase oil production capacity. 

The conflict is obvious. To keep global warming to the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5C, greenhouse gas emissions must nearly halve by 2030. And in the wordsof the UN’s authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there must be “a substantial reduction”