COP28 president Sultan Al Jaber held an unscheduled press conference Monday morning claiming his comment last month that there was “no science” behind the belief that fossil fuels were a primary driver of climate change was misunderstood.
“I have always been very clear on the fact that we are making sure that everything we do is centered around the science.”
“I honestly think there is some confusion out there, and misrepresentation and misinterpretation,” he said, adding, “I have said over and over that the phase down and the phase out of fossil fuel is inevitable. In fact, it is essential … it needs to be orderly, fair, just and responsible.”
Yet in a disturbing conversation in November with Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, Al Jaber said there is “no science” behind the belief that phasing out fossil fuels could keep global warming at the 1.5 degree C target set in the Paris Agreement in 2015. A phase-out, he said, would “take the world back into caves.”
Al Jaber called for realistic and pragmatic thinking in his conversation with Robinson, even as he claimed that 1.5 degrees was his “north star”
In an increasingly fractious series of responses to Robinson pushing him on the point, Al Jaber asked her “please, help me, show me a roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuels that will allow for sustainable socio-economic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.” www.cnn.com/...
His statements sent shockwaves through the COP in Dubai this weekend raising concerns that Al Jaber, who is CEO of the UAE’s national oil company Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), was a climate denier and not the right person to be leading the annual UN climate talks.
Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at non-profit Oil Change International, said in a statement Al Jaber’s statements during the panel discussion were “alarming,” “science-denying” and “raise deep concerns about the Presidency’s capacity to lead the UN climate talks.”
-snip-
Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London, said he strongly recommended Al Jaber revisit the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“That report, approved unanimously by 195 countries including the UAE, shows a variety of ways to limit warming to 1.5°C — all of which indicate a de facto phase out of fossil fuels in the first half of the century. Will that take the world back to the caves? Absolutely not,” he said in a statement.
US Climate Envoy, John Kerry noted that “G7 countries voted that there should be a phasing out of unmitigated fossil fuel emissions and what there is science for is keeping 1.5 degrees as your North Star.”
“Every decision we make should be geared to say, ‘does this advance the 1.5 degrees or is it going to be more destructive and take us in the wrong direction.”
Meanwhile, a leading Earth scientist says the UN Climate Talks need to acknowledge that we are now “truly at the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era for the world economy. And that we are now starting to bend the curve, properly.”
“It is only that that will count whether COP28 is a success,” Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate, told CNBC. “Everything else will follow. So, of course, it is good to make progress on loss and damage, Article 6, financing, adaptation, nature, agriculture and water, but it is all following from whether or not we make progress on the fossil fuel phase-out.”
Rockstrom echoes the strong belief of many participants that this COP must finally aggressively address a phase-out. A draft text released Friday suggests that “phase out” could be part of the final deal reached at the conference’s conclusion.
Not everyone is on board with calls for a phase-out. Russia has said it would oppose this language being used in the final agreement, while COP28 host the United Arab Emirates has signaled its preference for a phase-down.
Big Oil, too, is pushing for a shift of focus away from calls to phase out fossil fuels. Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods told CNBC on Saturday that society should instead prioritize reducing emissions, which he described as the “true problem.”
At last year’s COP27, at over 80 countries called for a phase-out in the final document. That movement is expected to gain momentum over the next two weeks in Dubai. A call to phase-out would signify, after almost 30 years of negotiations, a formal recognition that fossil fuels are the largest driver of climate change.
The final document is expected to be completed at the COP's conclusion on December 12. Calling for a phase-out commitment would mean shifting from fossil fuels until they are eliminated, whereas a phase-down would not completely end their use.
The culmination of nearly 30 years of governments coming together in as yet unsuccessful attempts to address global warming, COP28 runs through the 12th in Dubai, as frustrations with the process are escalating. Global temperatures have already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius this year, with reports saying temperatures are expected to be more than double by 2030 unless a phase-out is instituted.
