Despite the agreement he pushed forward at COP28, Sultan Ahmed Al Yaber, also managing director of the oil company Adnoc, assured that his company must “continue to meet demand”.
COP28 President and Managing Director of oil major Adnoc, Sultan Ahmed Al Yaber, has confirmed that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will continue to make major investments in gas and oil, despite the agreement he promoted in Dubai to urge countries to do so “Transition away from fossil fuels”.
Al Yaber assured that Adnoc, which is one of the world's ten largest oil producers, “must continue to meet demand.” “My approach is very simple,” he told The Guardian. “We will continue to be a reliable supplier of low-carbon energy as the world needs low-cost, low-carbon barrels.”
“Ultimately, demand will decide and dictate what type of energy we need to meet demand.” warned the Sultan, who was accused of double standards and conflicts of interest before, during and after COP28. His decision, he assures, is in line with the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which even predicts the need for “a small amount of fossil fuels in 2050”, despite the net zero target for that date.
“If demand (for oil) stops, it will be a completely different story,” Al Yaber warned. “What we need now is to decarbonize the current energy system and at the same time build a new energy system.”
Criticism from the scientific community
The COP28 President's words have reactivated criticism from the scientific community, climate justice groups and the UN Secretary-General himself, António Guterres, of the use of the soft word “transition away” instead of the hard and forceful “exit” (“elimination”) included in the final text of the summit to accommodate the demands of the petrostates, despite the support of more than 130 countries.
Although this is the first time in nearly three decades that fossil fuels have been explicitly mentioned in a COP, the terminology used and gaps in the text have led to backlash, which has been reinforced by the Sultan's own words.
“We have the fifth largest oil reserves in the world, but we will not exploit all of these resources,” he said. assured Al Yaber, who still wants to invest the equivalent of 138 billion euros in five years, with the aim of producing up to 5 million barrels of oil per day in 2027.
According to Global Oil Gas Exit List (Gogel) data, the UAE state-owned company tops the list of investments in future projects, ahead of the National Company of Iran, ExxonMobil, Chinese National Oil Corporation and Chrevron. Adnoc expansion data includes projects pending approval in 2023 that have been delayed until after COP28, according to internal documentation leaked to The Politico.
“The scale of the industry’s expansion plans is frightening” said Nils Bartsch, spokesman for the German environmental group Urgewald, which compiles Gogel's list with data on 1,600 oil companies. 96% of them are continuing exploration and prospecting plans, in which 154,000 million euros have been invested since 2021.
According to Oil Change International, five countries in the Global North (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Norway) will account for 51% of oil and gas production projects by 2050. “These countries have a moral and historical responsibility for this.” “We are moving faster than anyone else toward eliminating fossil fuels and yet we are doing exactly the opposite,” warned Roman Ioulalen, spokesman for Oil Change International.
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