It was an unlikely scene: Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of one of the world's largest oil companies, stood before negotiators from nearly 200 nations on Wednesday and announced a major new climate deal that would transition the global economy away from fossil fuels.
In language reminiscent of an awards acceptance speech, Mr. Al Jaber congratulated the assembled diplomats and himself for proving the doubters wrong. After three decades of United Nations climate agreements that made no mention of fossil fuels like oil and gas at all, he chaired the summit that focused explicitly on the root cause of global warming.
“Many said it couldn’t be done,” Mr Al Jaber said.
Mr Al Jaber, 50, was a controversial choice to lead the annual climate talks, which are usually chaired by a politician or diplomat from the host country. The United Arab Emirates, this year's host, selected him last January. Although he holds several government positions, Mr. Al Jaber's primary focus is running the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
His gruff business style was evident at the summit, when he once told negotiators to “work harder, work faster, work smarter.” And on Wednesday, just minutes after convening the final meeting, he declared the agreement approved before some diplomats had even reached their seats.
Negotiators from small islands, whose countries are among the most vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate-related extreme weather events, complained that the deal was approved without their consent. They pointed out that the global agreement to move away from fossil fuels lacks concrete dates and has numerous reservations and loopholes.
“It looks like you just made the decision and the small island developing states were not in the room,” said Anne Rasmussen, the chief negotiator of a group of 39 small island states, with anger in her voice. “This process has failed us.”
Before this year's climate summit, the chances of a significant new climate agreement seemed slim. At previous summits, fossil fuel producing countries had managed to keep oil, gas and, until recently, coal out of the final declaration. And Mr. Al Jaber's own company is investing at least $150 billion in expanded drilling over the next five years.
But even some climate advocates who initially viewed Mr. Al Jaber's appointment as risky, if not downright outrageous, said that the final agreement, while flawed in many ways, had exceeded their expectations.
“From the beginning, he had a lot of ambitious goals that sounded good, but we assumed he had no strategy to back them up,” said Alden Meyer, a senior fellow at the climate research group E3G, who took part in all but one has the last climate summit. “But I have to give him credit for getting the results. There are many problems with the final agreement, but there are also things that suggest this is a turning point in the transition away from fossil fuels.”
His approach was not without critics. Months before the conference began, more than 100 European and American lawmakers had called for Mr. Al Jaber's removal, saying he was so compromised that he could not negotiate a fair deal to curb climate change.
And during the conference, many climate activists found it repulsive that a record number of fossil fuel advocates, at least 1,200, attended this year's summit.
Many political leaders and environmentalists also criticized the final climate agreement for being full of caveats that appeared to favor fossil fuel interests. It encouraged countries to expand carbon capture, a largely untested technology favored by oil and gas companies, and recognized a special role in the energy transition for so-called transition fuels, considered code for natural gas.
But others said it was surprising that nearly 200 countries could even agree to a declaration that the world should transition away from fossil fuels, given long-standing opposition to such language from major oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia.
“The way this process is set up, a country can say no to the whole thing,” said John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change. “It is all the more remarkable that there is so much ambition in this document.”
All along, Mr. Al Jaber had argued that he was uniquely suited to the task of building consensus among nations as diverse in their climate aspirations as Saudi Arabia and Vanuatu, a country that scientists say it will perish due to sea level rise caused by global warming.
In addition to his work as an oil executive, Mr Al Jaber founded the Emirates' leading renewable energy company, which has invested billions of dollars in projects around the world. But more important, he said, is his attitude of understanding and inclusion toward fossil fuel-producing countries.
In the negotiating rooms cordoned off from the press, after hours of hectic shuttle diplomacy between Mr. Al Jaber's team and representatives with nearly diametrically opposed representations, his bosses and other negotiators said, a deal that would see a shift away from fossil fuel interests was in sight.
“In unity and solidarity, we will follow the new path set for the world by the UAE Consensus,” he said in his speech. “Together we will secure the future of this beautiful planet for many generations to come.”