the New York Times recently detailed how the oil superpowers are masterfully using their “diplomatic muscle” to obstruct climate action. It is the triumph of this uninhibited approach that is confirmed by the appointment of Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, a senior executive of a powerful oil company in the United Arab Emirates, as President of the next UN climate conference (COP28 ), in Dubai next November.
Anchored “one foot in oil, the other in renewable energies”, to use the image of the World, the man is used to wide gaps. The posture of the chairman and managing director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is the perfect reflection of the ideology of his country with flourishing energy capitals. No wonder it is he, too, who holds the reins of the Emirati Ministry of Industry.
The country is blowing climate hot and cold by investing massively in research, decarbonization and the development of renewable energies at home, while defending tooth and nail its right to export as many fossil fuels as it pleases. Armed with a conductor with such firm ideas, and whose role will nevertheless be crucial in uniting delegates with divergent interests, are the small steps accomplished in Sharm el-Sheikh, during COP27, doomed to transform in place in Dubai, or even worse, to be erased?
Many observers and environmentalists fear it. We understand them, the risk is real. So, were they alarmed, the wolf invites himself into the sheepfold and no one finds anything wrong with it? Their cries heard from Paris to Washington via Ottawa or Canberra prove just the opposite; the topic was literally everywhere this week.
More cautious, the decision-makers have mostly put on their smallest shoes so as not to offend their future host. This includes our Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change. After all, Canada shares some of the views of the Emirates, which offered a golden ticket to COP27 to six local oil companies. He just promised to reserve his judgment on the alder of the leadership that Ahmed al-Jaber will use – or not – to advance the interests of the planet when the day comes.
Decision-makers are granted that it is unthinkable to organize COPs between virtuous countries. The challenge is so great, so crucial, that it will not be met without general consultation. Torpedoing it now would be ill-advised. But it will not be realized either on the basis of this economic pragmatism of which the Emirates are the champions. The UN Secretary General is adamant: “There is no way to avert climate catastrophe without ending” dependence on fossil fuels. Point bar.
In a very harsh editorial, the scientific journal Nature wondered if the time had not come to decree the useful end of the COPs because of the rise in power of the oil and gas lobbies within it. It is too early to capitulate, but the question is crucial. Remain a little more than ten months to answer it. Until then, it will be crucial that the countries, first and foremost Canada, clearly express their expectations — and their limits — with regard to the sultan, whose conflict of interests is obvious, and his otherworldliness, heartbreaking. The diplomatic muscle is hardening on all sides.