ABU DHABI — If the world is lucky, this could be the year fossil fuel producers and climate activists bury their axes and join hands to reduce emissions and secure a future for our planet. our planet.
If that sounds hopelessly utopian, talk to the leaders of this resource-rich, renewable-powered Middle Eastern monarchy. The United Arab Emirates is determined to bring specificity, urgency and pragmatism into a process that often lacks all three elements: the 28th convening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, approved called COP 28, which the United Arab Emirates will host from November 30 to December 12.
To kick off 2023, the oil, gas and climate communities gathered this weekend to Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum, launching the annual Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. After decades of distrust, more and more people are realizing that they can’t live without each other.
Thank you Russian President Vladimir Putin Crime war in Ukraine, and his ongoing weaponization of energy, to inject a new dose of stubborn reality into climate conversations. It is rarely clear that energy security and cleaner energy are inseparable. The guiding principle is “impossible trio of sustainable energy,” is defined as the need to balance the reliability, affordability and sustainability of energy.
What contributed to this new pragmatism was the recognition by much of the climate community that Energy conversion to renewable energy cannot be achieved without fossil fuels, so they have to be cleaned more. They arrived accept that natural gasespecially liquefied natural gas (LNG), with emissions half that of coal, provides a powerful bridging fuel.
Once mocked by green activists, Nuclear power is also gaining new fans—especially when it comes to small, modular factories, where there are fewer concerns about weapons safety and proliferation.
For their part, almost all the major oil and gas producers, who once despised climate activists, now accept the realities of climate science and are invest billions of dollars in renewable energy and efforts to make their fossil fuels cleaner.
“Every serious hydrocarbon producer knows the future, in a world of reduced fossil fuel use, is low-cost, low-risk, and low-carbon,” said David Goldwyn, former State Department energy envoy US delivery said. “The only way to make sure we do this is to have industry at the table.”
Nowhere is this shift among climate activists more apparent than in Germany, where Deputy Chancellor Robert Habeck, leader of the Green Party, is holding the pragmatist presidency.
Habeck, who served as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, has been the driving force behind extending the life of three of the country’s nuclear plants until April and opening the station. Germany imported its first LNG in December, with five more plants to follow.
“I am ultimately responsible for the security of the German energy system,” Habeck told Financial Times reporter Guy Chazan in an interview. profile scan German politician. “So I’m not worried anymore. … I became a minister to make tough decisions, not to be the most popular politician in Germany.”
Some climate activists aghast on Thursday this week when the UAE appointed Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), as president of this year’s COP 28.
“This appointment goes beyond putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop,” Teresa Anderson of ActionAid said, a development charity. “Like last year’s summit, we’re increasingly seeing fossil fuel interests take control of the process and shape it to meet their own needs.”
What’s omitted is Al Jaber’s Rich background in both renewable energy and fossil fuels making him an ideal choice at a time when efforts to tackle climate change are too slow, lacking in comprehensiveness to produce more transformative outcomes.
Al Jaber is the CEO of the world’s 14th largest oil producer, but at the same time he is the Founding CEO of Masdar, one of the world’s largest renewable energy investors, where he remains is the president. He also represents a country that, despite being rich in resources, has become a major producer of nuclear power, is the first Middle Eastern country to join the Paris Climate Agreement and is the First Middle Eastern country to map out a roadmap to net zero emissions by 2050.
Over the past 15 years, the UAE has invested $40 billion for renewable energy and clean technology globally. In November, it signed a cooperation agreement with the United States to invest a add $100 billion to clean energy. About 70% of the UAE economy is generated outside of the oil and gas sector, making it an outlier among major producing countries in diversifying.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, explained his country approach this way: “There will come a time, 50 years from now, when we load the last barrel of oil on board. The question is… will we feel sad? If our investment today is right, I think—my dear brothers and sisters—we will celebrate that moment.”
Al Jaber, speaking before the Atlantic Council Global Energy Forum on Saturday, captured his ambition to drive faster and more transformative outcomes at COP 28.
Al Jaber said: “We are going in the wrong direction.
“The world is catching up to Paris’ main goal of keeping the global temperature down to 1.5 degrees Celsius,” he said. “And the hard reality is that to achieve this goal, global emissions must be reduced by 43%. by 2030. To meet that challenge, we must reduce emissions at a time of continued economic uncertainty, rising geopolitical tensions, and growing pressure on energy.”
He called for “transformation… through game-changing partnerships, solutions and outcomes.” He said the world must triple renewable energy production from 8 terawatt-hours to 23 hours, and more than double low-carbon hydrogen production to 180 million tons for industries, which have large amounts of natural gas. carbon emissions are the hardest to reduce.
“We will work with the energy sector to accelerate decarbonisation, methane reduction and hydrogen expansion,” said Al Jaber. “Let’s focus on limiting emissions, not progress.”
If that sounds impossible, do more.
— Frederick Kempe is the President and CEO of the Atlantic Council.
