COP28 UAE Presidency | Why are Western lawmakers opposing Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber’s appointment?

Subject : Environment

Section: International conventions

Context:

The UAE announced Mr. al-Jaber, the State oil company CEO, as its pick in January, a move that has faced backlash from Western lawmakers, leaders of some countries, as well as civil society groups.

Details:

More than 130 lawmakers from the United States and the European Parliament last month wrote a letter to European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Joe Biden asking them to urge the UAE to withdraw its appointment of Mr. al-Jaber as the COP28 President.
They argued that the move could risk undermining the climate negotiations and asked the world leaders to help restore “public faith in the COP process severely jeopardised by having an oil company executive at the helm.”

Who is Sultan al-Jaber?

He is the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) since 2016.
He was appointed as UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology in 2020, a new department established that year.
He has a chemical engineering and economics background, and was serving as a Minister of State in the UAE government since 2013.
Also in 2020, he was for the second time appointed as the UAE’s special envoy for climate change, a role previously held by him from 2010 to 2016.
He is also serving in a contrasting role, as the Chairman of Masdar, a renewable energy firm in Abu Dhabi, which he helped start in 2006.
The Guardian reported late last month that Mr. al-Jaber’s team was being accused of attempting to “greenwash” his image.

Why has Mr. al-Jaber’s advocacy of carbon capture been criticised?

Mr. al-Jaber insists on oil and gas continuing to play a role in the future, provided their emissions are somehow curbed.
Climate campaigners and scientists have expressed caution that technologies proposed so far to capture fossil fuel emissions have not been tested at scale.
While taking the immediate phaseout of fossil fuels off the table, Mr. al-Jaber has reiterated the need to double down on renewables.

Post of CoP president: Their role and responsibilities:

The government of the host country holds the presidencyfor one year.
It usually names one of its ministers as the president.
The role of the CoP president is to facilitate and guide the negotiations.
The President does not have any special powers but does play a key role in prioritising the agenda of discussions and helping forge a consensus on important issues.
They are usually extremely active behind the scenes, brokering deals and compromises, mediating conflicts, and acting as crisis managers.
However, the final decisions are always taken by consensus.
Extended role of COP presidents:
- For the past few years, COP presidents have engaged in pre-conference diplomacy, travelling all over the world to hold discussions with governments in order to understand their priorities and to get a sense of the kind of agreement that could be realistically achieved at the conference.
- There have been several instances when a single country– and not one from among the most powerful- has stood up and disagreed with the rest of the world, and the conference had to accommodate its concerns.