The United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the upcoming COP28 climate summit, reportedly planned to use the platform to strike deals for its national oil and gas companies, according to media reports.
Both BBC and Guardian reported, citing leaked documents accessed by independent journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting, that it was in discussions with 15 countries to discuss fossil fuel deals.
The marquee summit will begin on Thursday and is headed by Sultan Al Jaber, who is the country’s climate envoy and also the chief executive of the national oil company Adnoc.
Discussions with 15 countries
The documents state that Adnoc, or more precisely Al Jaber, was in discussions with those 15 countries to extract their oil and gas resources.
These documents were reportedly prepared by the UAE’s COP28 team for meetings with at least 27 foreign governments ahead of the COP28 summit, BBC reported.
Among the “talking points” of those documents is that for China, Adnoc is “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG [liquefied natural gas] opportunities” in Mozambique, Canada and Australia.
Additionally, it talks of proposes to Colombia that Adnoc “stands ready” to help develop its oil and gas reserves.
UAE’s COP28 team responds
The UAE’s COP28 team did not deny using the climate meetings for business talks, saying that “private meetings are private”.
It declined to comment on what was discussed in the meetings and said its work has been focused on “meaningful climate action”.
Even before the meetings began, there were concerns raised on Al Jaber’s dual role, pointing out that Al Jaber’s presidency of COP28 could potentially endanger a successful outcome.
The briefings also purportedly show that the UAE prepared talking points on commercial opportunities for its state renewable energy company, Masdar, ahead of meetings with 20 countries, including the UK, United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kenya.
This year’s climate summit is being hosted in Dubai, and is expected to see the attendance of 167 world leaders, including the Pope and King Charles III.
These summits are the world’s most important meetings to discuss how to tackle climate change.
Climate experts have been hoping that COP28 will pave the way for consensus on reaching the long-term global temperature of 1.5C, which the UN’s climate science body says is crucial to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
However, for that it will require drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, about 43 per cent reduction by 2030 from 2019 levels.
(With inputs from agencies)
