This post was originally published on this site
The fossil fuel-pumping industry has to move much faster in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, said Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the head of the United Arab Emirates’ state-owned energy concern and the controversial president-designate of the U.N. climate conference the UAE will host later this year.
“Let me call on you today to decarbonize quicker, future-proof sooner and create the energy system of the future, today,” he said Monday in keynote remarks at CERAWeek, a major global energy conference underway in Houston.
The oil executive will lead the next installment of the U.N.’s Conference of the Parties, or COP28, which is slated to run Nov. 30-Dec. 12 in the UAE, a designation that has raised concerns from environmental groups about whether leaders from the oil and gas industry should have such a high-profile role in what each year is arguably the globe’s pivotal climate-change gathering. COP27 was held in Egypt.
“This appointment goes beyond putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” said Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice at ActionAid, a development nonprofit, earlier this year.
COP28 is expected to convene over 70,000 participants, including heads of state, government officials, international industry leaders, private-sector representatives, academics, experts, youth and non-state actors.
It’s just the energy industry’s scale and pressure to adapt that make its leadership in the energy transition vital, al-Jaber said Monday.
“Energy leaders
BRN00,
have the knowledge, experience, expertise and the resources needed to address the dual challenge of driving sustainable progress while holding back emissions.”
He said balancing the energy needs of a growing planet against the call to cut emissions is a delicate task.
“By 2030, there will be an extra half a billion people living on this planet, demanding more energy every year. And at the same time, the world needs to cut emissions by 7% each year to keep 1.5 alive [the temperature limit, in Celsius, set at 2015’s Paris climate summit]. That’s 43% in less than seven years,” he told the conference.
‘Terrific choice’
While some criticism was leveled at the choice of the UAE and al-Jaber to lead COP28, he did earn the backing of U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.
Kerry, the onetime presidential candidate and secretary of state, told the Associated Press earlier this year the Emirates and other countries relying on fossil fuels
NG00,
to fund their state coffers face finding “some balance” ahead.
However, Kerry dismissed the idea that Al Jaber’s appointment should be automatically disqualified due to him leading the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.
“I think that Dr. Sultan al-Jaber is a terrific choice because he is the head of the company. That company knows it needs to transition,” Kerry said after attending an energy conference in the Emirati capital. “He knows — and the leadership of the UAE is committed to transitioning.”
The UAE is a pivotal military ally in the region for the U.S.
“‘I think that Dr. Sultan al-Jaber is a terrific choice [to lead COP28] because he is the head of the [UAE’s state-run energy] company. That company knows it needs to transition [away from fossil fuels].”
Abu Dhabi said earlier this year it plans to increase its production of crude oil from 4 million barrels a day up to 5 million even while the UAE promises to be carbon neutral by 2050 — a target that remains difficult to assess and one that the Emirates still hasn’t fully explained how it will reach.
Related: John Kerry tells AP he backs UAE oil chief overseeing COP28
As mandated by the Paris Climate Agreement, COP28 UAE will deliver the first ever global “stocktake” — a comprehensive evaluation of progress toward climate goals.
“This year, the world will evaluate exactly where we are when it comes to climate progress… And we know we are way off track. We need a major course correction,” al-Jaber said in Houston.
He added: “To echo the two most famous phrases of this city, first we need to recognize ‘Houston…we have a problem’ and then we need to agree that ‘failure is not an option.’”
Only half of the oil and gas industry has declared a scope 1 and 2 net-zero emissions goals by 2050. Scope 1 and 2 largely tracks the sources of emissions directly from energy burning and from an oil concern’s own operations. The much-harder-to-log scope 3 emissions cover the pollution up and down a complete supply chain.
“Everyone in the industry needs to be aligned around the same goal. And we should stretch ourselves to go further. Let’s aim to achieve net-zero even earlier. Let’s also scale up best practices to reach net-zero methane emissions by 2030,” he said in the speech. Methane is a more-potent, but shorter-lasting emission than carbon dioxide, which has made it a newly favorite target for mitigation.
Read: Energy group blasts Big Oil for not giving just 3% of record profits to methane-emission cuts
“Let’s electrify operations, equip facilities with carbon capture and storage, and use all available technologies to increase efficiency. And let’s monitor, measure and validate progress every step of the way,” al-Jaber continued: “Making a dent in the climate crisis is not just about decarbonizing oil and gas operations. With the right incentives, the right technologies, the right mindset and the right partnership model, the oil and gas industry has the capacity and the resources to help everyone address scope 3.”
The decade to diversify on energy
Al-Jaber is a trusted confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al- Nahyan. He also led a once-ambitious project to erect a $22 billion “carbon-neutral” city on Abu Dhabi’s outskirts — an effort later pared back after the global financial crisis that struck the Emirates hard beginning in 2008, the Associated Press reports. Today, he also serves as the chairman of Masdar, a clean energy company that grew out of the project.
In his Monday speech, al-Jaber said that by 2030, renewable energy
ICLN,
capacity needs to triple.”
“‘COP28 will be a COP of action. We want real results. The world must move from treaties to implementation.’”
“This is the decade to diversify portfolios, future proof companies and provide the clean energy the world needs,” he said. “That said, we know that for high-emitting sectors, renewable energy is not enough. Aluminum, steel, cement and many other heavy industries, make up 30% of global emissions.”
He urged global governments to create the incentives that “move the market in the right direction.”
“Industry needs clear policies to guide long-term investment decisions. The right regulations will stimulate breakthrough technologies to unlock battery storage, bring down the cost of carbon capture, and develop and commercialize the hydrogen value chain,” he said, repeating the International Energy Agency’s call for three times the $1.4 trillion in capital steered toward the energy transition in 2022.
When asked about what he hopes to achieve at COP28, al-Jaber outlined the key priorities across mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, which directs wealthier nations to pay to offset the climate change effects for resource-heavy, poorer nations, as well as climate finance, and process innovation.
“COP28 will be a COP of action,” he said, adding “we want real results. The world must move from treaties to implementation.”
