1 of 1 Sultan alJaber is chairman of the climate summit and also head of the UAE state oil company Photo: Getty Images/BBC Sultan alJaber is chairman of the climate summit and also head of the UAE state oil company United Arabs Photo: Getty Images/ BBC
Sultan Al Jaber, president of COP28, said there was “no scientific evidence” to support the need to gradually reduce the use of fossil fuels to mitigate the effects of climate change. The case was revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian.
Al Jaber’s statement contradicts the scientific consensus. This is because the UN itself, which is promoting COP28, says that fossil fuel use is the main cause of global warming.
Since preindustrial times, the burning of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal has already caused the Earth’s average temperature to rise by 1.25°C.
To limit global warming to 1.5°C compared to preindustrial levels, global greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by half by 2030. [48%] and up to 99% by 2050, according to calculations by the IPCC, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The increase in temperature is accompanied by sea level rise, an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme events and the imbalance of ecosystems.
But for Al Jaber, eliminating fossil fuel use, even gradually, would not enable sustainable development “unless we want to take the world back to the caves.”
“There is no science or scenario that says phasing out fossil fuels is the goal [a meta de restringir o aquecimento global a] 1.5°C,” he said.
Since Al Jaber was elected chairman of COP28, environmental activists have highlighted the conflict of interest, as the sultan is also head of the UAE’s state oil company, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).
His comments came during an online event on November 21 in response to questions from Mary Robinson, the former UN special envoy on climate change.
During the event, Robinson said that the world is in a crisis that is hurting women and children the most, and that this is happening because there is still no commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. “That is the only decision COP28 can make, and because you are the head of Adnoc, in many ways you could even make it with more credibility.”
Al Jaber responded that he hoped for a “sober and mature” conversation at the meeting and said he was not taking part in what he called an “alarmist discussion.”
COP 28 is the 28th UN Climate Change Conference, an event that brings together governments from around the world, diplomats, scientists, members of civil society and various private entities with the aim of discussing and seeking solutions to the humancaused climate crisis. The conference has been held annually since 1995 (except in 2020 due to the pandemic) by countries that agreed to a UN environmental pact in the early 1990s.
The main goal of the treaty, called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is to stabilize the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in order to combat the human threat to Earth’s climate system that has become increasingly apparent in recent months. This year, for example, was the first time the world recorded a day with a global average temperature 2°C higher than the preindustrial era.
In addition, according to the European Observatory Copernicus, the month of October 2023 was the hottest month ever recorded worldwide, with an average surface air temperature of 15.3 °C, which is 0.85 °C higher than the October average from 1991 to 2020 and 0.4 °C above the warmest October so far in 2019.
The rapid climate change we are currently experiencing is caused by human use of oil, gas and coal for homes, factories and transportation. When these fossil fuels burn, they release greenhouse gases primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases trap the sun’s heat and cause the planet’s temperature to rise.