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COP28 Adviser Quits Over Alleged UAE Oil and Gas Deal-Making
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole," former Marshallese President Hilda Heine wrote in her resignation letter to COP28 chief Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber.
Dec 01, 2023
United Nations Climate Change Conference advisory board member Hilda Heine resigned on Friday, citing reports that the Emirati oil executive presiding over COP28 has been busy pushing for fossil fuel deals in the run-up to the event.
Earlier this week, the Center for Climate Reporting and the BBC reported that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber—who is simultaneously serving as COP28 president and CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)—"has held scores of meetings with senior government officials, royalty, and business leaders from around the world in recent months" as the "COP28 team has quietly planned to use this access as an opportunity to increase exports of ADNOC's oil and gas."
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole."
In her resignation letter, which was seen and first reported by Reuters, Heine—who is a former president of the low-lying Marshall Islands, one of the world's most climate-imperiled nations—called the United Arab Emirates' plan to make oil and gas deals at COP28 "deeply disappointing."
"These actions undermine the integrity of the COP presidency and the process as a whole," she asserted, adding that the only way Al Jaber can restore confidence is to "deliver an outcome that demonstrates that you are committed to phasing out fossil fuels."
Al Jaber has denied that he's using COP28 for fossil fuel deal-making.
"These allegations are false, not true, incorrect, and not accurate," he said Wednesday at a Dubai press conference. "And it's an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency."
A spokesperson for COP28's presidency said they are "extremely disappointed by Dr. Heine's resignation."
"We appreciated her advice throughout the year and that we only wish she would have been with us here in the UAE celebrating the adoption of a fund that will support vulnerable island states and those most affected by climate impacts," the spokesperson said, referring to the global "loss and damage" fund that one critic
slammed as "a drop in the ocean compared to the scale of the need they are to address."
The UAE isn't the only major oil producer pushing fossil fuels while participating in COP28. Saudi Arabia—whose Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday was among the world leaders kicking off talks at the conference—"is overseeing a sweeping global investment program" intended to "ensure that emerging economies across Africa and Asia become vastly more dependent on oil," the Center for Climate Reporting and Channel 4 News revealed this week.
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200+ Groups Implore COP28 Nations to Address UAE's Human Rights and Climate Abuses
"Allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process."
Sep 13, 2023
More than 200 civil society organizations from around the world on Wednesday urged leaders of countries participating in this autumn's United Nations Climate Change Conference—popularly known as COP28—to address host nation United Arab Emirates' "human rights record and destructive policies on climate change."
"We support the concerns expressed by climate justice movements that allowing COP28 to be held by the rulers of a repressive petrostate, and overseen by an oil executive, is reckless, represents a blatant conflict of interest, and threatens the legitimacy of the whole process," the groups wrote in a letter, referring to Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, the CEO of the United Arab Emirates' state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)—one of the world's largest fossil fuel firms.
Earlier this year, one European Union lawmaker likened al-Jaber's COP28 presidency to "having a tobacco multinational overseeing the internal work of the World Health Organization."
The groups' letter continues:
Climate justice and human rights are deeply interconnected—there cannot be one without the other. As COP28 delegates prepare to attend the talks in Dubai, it is crucial for the international community to use the opportunity to shine a spotlight on the UAE's human rights record, and to stand in solidarity with communities on the frontlines working to stop climate change impacts and human rights violations in the UAE and across the world.
The signatories called on the world leaders to:
- Demand that the UAE not spy on COP28 attendees and end unlawful surveillance that violates international human rights law;
- Call on the UAE to release all prisoners of conscience;
- Demand action on violations of women's rights;
- Condemn violations of LGBTQ+ rights;
- Call for workers' rights reforms and reparation for forced labor;
- Urge the UAE to stop supporting human rights violators in Yemen and across the Middle East and North Africa; and
- Publicly repudiate UAE greenwashing and fossil fuel hypocrisy.
"In addition, we urge all nations to make meaningful and ambitious commitments at COP28, with rich countries taking responsibility for their historical emissions and leading the way with commitments in line with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and principles of equity," the letter asserts.
"COP28 must produce a global commitment to phase out all fossil fuels and fossil fuel subsidies at the speed needed to keep global average temperature increases below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels," the signers added.
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COP28 President's State Oil Firm Reported Just 7% of Emissions Last Year: Global Witness
"This is a classic case of hypocritical fossil fuel firms saying one thing and doing another," said a senior Global Witness investigator.
Aug 11, 2023
An investigation published Friday by the international NGO Global Witness revealed that the oil giant run by Emirati Minister of Industry Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber—who is also president of this year's United Nations Climate Change Conference—was responsible for 14 times more planet-heating carbon emissions last year than it reported.
Last month, Al Jaber, who is CEO of state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), said that nations attending this autumn's U.N. summit, or COP28, in Dubai "must be brutally honest" about "all emissions, everywhere. [Scope] 1, 2, and 3."
As Global Witness explained:
Scope 1 and 2 emissions do not include pollution released when fossil fuels like oil and gas are burned for energy. These—known as scope 3—typically make up the vast majority of an oil company's carbon footprint. Although most oil and gas majors do not traditionally track Scope 3, some such as BP and Chevron do include scope 3 reductions in their climate targets.
Analysis of production data from Rystad Energy shows that ADNOC in 2022 produced over 650 million barrels of oil—enough to power China's oil demand for six weeks—and over 40 billion cubic meters of gas.
Emissions from those products alone are calculated to just over 340 million tonnes of CO2—more than the U.K. produces each year, and 14.1 times higher than the emissions the ADNOC disclosed this week.
"This is a classic case of hypocritical fossil fuel firms saying one thing and doing another," Global Witness senior investigator Patrick Galey said in a statement. "Sultan Al Jaber is on one hand asking companies to include all emissions in their climate strategies, while his firm is patting itself on the back for disclosing only a tiny fraction of its true climate impact."
"Fossil fuels account for 90% of the carbon emissions that are heating the planet and inflicting misery and loss on millions of people. The climate doesn't respond to clever accounting," Galey added. "While conceding publicly that a liveble future means cutting all emissions, Al Jaber's firm is refusing to acknowledge the vast majority of its products' emissions as its own."
At the same time, Al Jaber is presiding over a massive expansion of ADNOC—the world's 11th-largest fossil fuel company—that is planned to boost production by the equivalent of over 7.5 billion barrels of oil in the coming years. According to The Guardian, that's the world's fifth-largest increase.
Climate defenders have warned all year that COP28 is likely to end in failure after the UAE appointed Al Jaber to preside over the summit, which seeks to "unite the world towards agreement" on "the most pressing global challenge of our time."
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Beware ADNOC’s Greenwashing Ahead of COP28
CCS should not be used as a smokescreen for real climate action or as an excuse to carry on drilling. We must transition away from oil and gas.
Aug 04, 2023
At the beginning of 2000s, as concerns about climate change grew, some of the biggest oil companies began to modify their climate change public relations strategies.
Instead of denying the evidence to sow doubt, they decided to try and spin their actions in more of a positive light. To try and co-opt the debate. They learnt their strategy from the masters of deception, the tobacco industry.
BP was the first to break ranks by changing its old tired logo to a Helios, a Greek sunburst, with its new strapline “beyond petroleum.”
The concept of a fossil fuel company registering a website that mirrors the temperature rise the world is trying to limit itself to because of burning fossil fuels would be seen as deeply ironic by many. But not the deeply misguided leaders at Occidental.
BP never did go beyond petroleum, but the company had thrown a gauntlet down to the others to give the smokescreen of at least beginning to take climate change seriously.
By now, there was emerging scientific consensus that the world had to limit warming to 1.5°C if we wanted a liveable future. So four years later, in 2004, Occidental Petroleum quietly registered the website: www.1pointfive.com.
The concept of a fossil fuel company registering a website that mirrors the temperature rise the world is trying to limit itself to because of burning fossil fuels would be seen as deeply ironic by many. But not the deeply misguided leaders at Occidental.
As the oil industry expanded its production and still tried to obfuscate action on climate change, the 1pointfive.com website lay dormant for 16 long years. And every year, our climate emergency has worsened.
Finally, in 2020, the website sprung into life. In October of that year, the website was launched, outlining in bold: “A Turning Point for Climate Change.” The website said the mission of the company was “Negative emissions.”.
It stated: “Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Rusheen Capital have come together to drive change and jumpstart the Direct Air Capture industry around the world.”
Fast forward another three years, and this week, Occidental announced that it had signed an agreement with ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, to evaluate investment opportunities in the controversial technologies of Carbon, Capture, and Storage (CCS), in both the UAE and the U.S..
ADNOC is in the spotlight this year because its head, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, is the host of COP28 climate talks, a choice which has drawn criticism from climate activists and scientists alike. Christiana Figueres, ex-Secretary General of the UNFCC, calls the idea of putting Al Jaber in charge of COP as “dangerous.”
She is not the only one outraged that the head of an oil company should host the world’s leading climate conference. It is akin to a tobacco executive hosting a conference on lung cancer and health.
You cannot be an oil company boss and host a climate conference without escaping controversy and scrutiny. So ADNOC is desperate to boost its green credentials, or at least give its operations a good green veneer, just as BP tried to do earlier this century.
To this end, the announcement between Occidental and ADNOC noted that two oil companies had come together “to develop a carbon management platform to accelerate the net-zero goals of both companies.” The key to this plan is Direct Air Capture—sucking carbon dioxide out of the air and burying it underground.
Recent OCI research has shown that the UAE is poised to become the third-largest expander of oil and gas production between 2023 and 2025, and ADNOC the second-largest expander company.
Despite the spin, even the company’s website shows how futile this procedure is. According to the 1pointfive website, globally it takes 13 hours to emit 67 million tonnes of CO2, enough to fill the Hoover Dam.
In contrast, it states that 1PointFive is developing the world’s largest Direct Air Capture facility, which will suck out 500,000 tonnes per year. That is 0.75% of what the world emits in 13 hours captured in one year.
And even if the Direct Air Capture technology is a success, there are other problems too.
Again trying to ward off its critics, ADNOC has just produced its first-ever report documenting the scale of its carbon emissions. The company says it emitted about 24 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022. So direct air capture would again only capture 2% of this.
But more importantly, the 24 million tonne figure is still not including its Scope 3 emissions. These are the emissions from burning oil and gas, which usually equate for 80-90% of an oil or gas company’s emissions.
The Occidental and ADNOC announcement on carbon capture came a day after ADNOC revised its plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2045 from an original target of 2050. ADNOC also stated that it aimed to achieve zero methane emissions by the end of the decade.
On the surface, this seems welcome, but in reality, it is just more smoke and mirrors.
The announcements form part of a wider climate spin machine that includes fake bots spreading misinformation on Twitter and a potential rebrand.
Last month, leaked documents obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting and Drilled revealed that ADNOC worried about “whats in a name” and had become “increasingly aware of the reputational challenges posed by our brand name.” ADNOC was thinking of future-proofing “the company, without compromising or undermining the equity of the ADNOC brand.”
Due to this, the UAE had contemplated dropping the word oil from ADNOC’s name in a major rebranding—or greenwashing—exercise. Just as BP had changed its name, so ADNOC was thinking of doing the same.
An advertising pitch warned that the ‘National Oil Company’ portion of its name was a “target for potential criticism.” Therefore the rebranded, green-veneered ADNOC would position itself as “a disruptive, ambitious, and confident energy company of the future” that “will invest and operate across the energy spectrum—from hydrocarbons and hydrogen to new and emerging energies.”
The rebrand may not have happened, but there are other flaws too. Firstly, despite this new commitment to reach net zero quicker and to develop its carbon capture technology, ADNOC still plans to increase production.
The reality is, as The Wall Street Journal so neatly put it in a recent headline: “Occidental Plans to Suck Carbon From the Air—So It Can Keep Pumping Oil.”
CCS should not be used as a smokescreen for real climate action or as an excuse to carry on drilling. We must transition away from oil and gas.
Recent OCI research has shown that the UAE is poised to become the third-largest expander of oil and gas production between 2023 and 2025, and ADNOC the second-largest expander company.
The analysis shows that ADNOC’s new oil and gas production over the next three years would lock in over 2.7 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions, equivalent to one year of the European Union’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
Anything short of phasing out fossil fuel expansion and production will lead to climate chaos.
Secondly, as the WSJ points out, we have no idea if direct air capture will work at scale. “Removing CO2 from the atmosphere at this scale has never been done before, and the enterprise comes with abundant commercial and scientific uncertainties... Many industry experts doubt that direct-air capture can be done economically because the amounts of air that need to be scrubbed are so large.”
Also, the company is not doing this to save the climate but to make money off the flawed carbon markets. 1pointfive.com is working with Verra, the industry leader in carbon offsetting. An investigation by The Guardian and Source Material earlier this year found that more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets issued by Verra were worthless. It’s no wonder commentators are skeptical:
Both announcements are part of a public relations drive by ADNOC in the run-up to COP. Again spin over substance.
David Tong, the Global Industry Campaign Manager for OCI who spoke to Living on Earth this week, said that ADNOC was “on track to be the second largest expander in terms of companies with the most expansion in new oil and gas from this year until 2025. So it’s really concerning to have him presiding over the U.N.’s crucial climate change negotiations.”
Moving the net zero target by five years, says Tong, looks “like a presidency, a country under intense pressure given their extraordinary conflict of interest, that is trying to salvage their credibility by framing themselves as a climate leader, without actually taking meaningful action to achieve this.”
“The UAE has made it very clear that they see it necessary to phase out fossil fuel emissions and argue that that is somehow possible to do without phasing out fossil fuels. That is simply false.”
The domestic policies that the UAE is putting in place have not changed significantly with this new target, and they are grossly insignificant, said Tong. “They’re all in on expanding the use of fossil gas, which is completely at odds with both their climate targets and with what the world needs for 1.5°C.”
“The UAE has made it very clear that they see it necessary to phase out fossil fuel emissions and argue that that is somehow possible to do without phasing out fossil fuels. That is simply false,” says Tong. “And the UAE is planning to do this through claiming that they can use dangerous distractions like carbon capture, which is a smokescreen to allow for continued oil and gas production.”
Finally, Tong said, “Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency have made it clear that there’s no room for new oil and gas if we are to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and limit warming to 1.5.”
If we are to keep 1.5 alive, we cannot carry on drilling for oil and gas, like ADNOC is. We cannot allow oil companies to set up climate-friendly-sounding websites pushing false and flawed solutions like Occidental has. We have to start phasing out production, which ADNOC is not.
It should also be pointed out that wealthy countries such as Norway, the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the USA have not signalled that they will cut production either. They must act too. But that does not let ADNOC off the hook. No matter how much spin you read or see in the run-up to COP28, ADNOC is not a climate leader until it signals it really is going beyond petroleum and keeping oil in the ground.
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