Sultan al-Jaber, boss of a Gulf oil giant, called on Saturday January 14 to “to focuson reducing CO2 emissions without attacking theprogress“, that is to say the energy industry, two days after criticism aroused by his appointment as president of COP28. CEO of ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company), the national oil company of the United Arab Emirates, Sultan al-Jaber was named Thursday president of the UN climate conference scheduled for this year in the rich Gulf state.
“We are at a historic turning point. Growth with less CO2 emissions is the futuresaid Sultan al-Jaber, also his country’s industry minister. “We work with the energy industry to accelerate decarbonization by reducing methane and developing hydrogen“, he added during an energy forum in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the Emirates. “Let’s continue to focus on curbing emissions, not progress“.
An attempt to defend hydrocarbons
With a projected increase in the world’s population, and the increased demand for energy it entails, “as long as the world uses hydrocarbons, we must ensure that they have the lowest carbon intensity possiblesaid the Emirati official.
A heavyweight in CO2 emissions, oil companies sometimes put forward the possibility of reducing their carbon footprint without jeopardizing the production of black gold. But, like many environmental activists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that “there is no way to avoid climate catastrophe without endingto dependence on fossil fuels.
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His country’s special envoy for climate change, Sultan al-Jaber also sought to be reassuring in the face of the skepticism aroused by his appointment as president of COP28, which will be held in November and December in Dubai, the most influential emirate in the world. country.
The Emirates sent the largest contingent of industry lobbyists to COP27 in November in Egypt. This edition allowed the adoption of a resolution on the compensation of the poorest countries for the damage caused by climate change. But it has failed to advance the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, to maintain the objective of limiting global warming. And the issue of less use of fossil fuels was barely mentioned in the texts.
Speaking at the same forum, Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi also defended the hydrocarbons sector, saying that green energy advocates lacked “realism“. According to him, theylived in a dream“that they couldn’t”achieve“. In the face of climate change,we need to be realistic about what we can achieve“, he estimated, while Qatar has been widely coveted in recent months by European countries seeking to do without Russian gas.
According to the Qatari minister, also head of QatarEnergy, the national company of the rich Gulf gas emirate, Russian gas could also “return to Europe” even though “the Europeans say today that it is out of the question“.
