For a style of the United Arab Emirates, strive the cappuccino at Abu Dhabis Emirates Palace resort. At round $25, its a high quality cup of espresso, however the gold flakes that come sprinkled on prime are its major promoting level. Each flip within the Palace, one of the vital costly accommodations ever constructed, radiates opulence: marble from ground to ceiling, greater than 1,000 crystal chandeliers, gold trim, and a alternative of Michelin-starred eating places on web site.
Simply throughout the road is the supply of the immense wealth that created this place, and remodeled the UAE from a desolate patch of desert to a rustic with the next GDP per capita (adjusted for buying energy) than the U.S.: the Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Firm, or ADNOC. In distinction to the lavish resort, the glass skyscraper is polished however environment friendly, the workplaces company, virtually austere. Staff and guests costume modestly, following the 13-page dress-code handbook I acquired forward of my go to.
I traveled to Abu Dhabi in late October, to not sip gilded cappuccinos, however to interview Sultan Al Jaber, the Ph.D. economist turned renewable-energy govt turned ADNOC CEO, who’s presiding over the U.N. local weather convention to be held in Dubai in December. The convention, often known as COP28, comes as, on the shut of the most popular 12 months on document, scientific consensus calls for that we reduce fossil-fuel use proper now. On the identical time, cash continues to circulate into fossil fuels; greater than $1 trillion in new funding was invested this 12 months alone, in accordance with the Worldwide Power Company (IEA).
Al Jaber, as the pinnacle of each COP28 and one of many worlds largest fossil-fuel firms, is tasked with reconciling these realities. Sitting in a gathering room on the Emirates Palace resort dressed within the conventional white thobe and sneakers, he’s each a goal for criticism and a logo of chance. A phasedown of fossil fuels is inevitable, it’s important, he tells me. We’ve got to simply accept that. On the identical time, he says, the world is just not prepared to completely kick oil and gasoline. We have to get actual, he says. We can’t unplug the world from the present vitality system earlier than we construct a brand new vitality system.

Most years, the COP president performs a largely functionary function, shuttling between member international locations to search out widespread floor on wonky areas of local weather coverage. Al Jaber has taken a really completely different strategy. He has prolonged an invite to grease and gasoline firms and prioritized private-sector local weather options. In Al Jabers view, the success of COP28, to not point out the broader efforts to combat local weather change, hinges as a lot on embracing the personal sector and shifting market circumstances because it does on wonky negotiations. Theres going to be a paradigm shift, he says. The political course of must be effectively complemented with personal capital and a enterprise mindset.
Success is much from assured. A enterprise mindset doesnt essentially map effectively onto diplomatic negotiations between 200 international locations. And companiesespecially these within the oil and gasoline businessdo not have an important observe document of following by means of on local weather commitments. Critics from Greta Thunberg to Al Gore say Al Jaber is only a stalking horse for the fossil-fuel industrys persevering with efforts to stall the worldwide local weather agenda. Al Jaber says hes uniquely positioned to reconcile the various pursuits within the local weather combat.
That debate will outline the approaching COP summit. We have to start to section out oil and gasoline whereas managing the continued dependence of our financial system on fossil fuels. Al Jabers not incorrect that that requires cold-eyed realism, however nobody is aware of the place his model of realism will lead. In Abu Dhabi, I sat down with John Kerry, the previous U.S. Secretary of State now serving as President Bidens local weather envoy. He has been supportive of Al Jaber from the start, however acknowledges the difficulties. It might or could not work, says Kerry. Some may name it an experiment to have an oil-and-gas-producing entity host COP. Thats the large query.
Searching the window of the Bell 412 helicopter ferrying me out of Abu Dhabi, I get a glimpse of the basic imaginative and prescient of the Arabian Desert: a sea of wavy sand dunes stretching so far as the attention can see. Seen by means of the opposite window is a science-fiction-like array of photo voltaic panels, overlaying an space bigger than Manhattan. Tracing the border of the photo voltaic park, we descend to get a better take a look at the practically 900-ft. tower loaded with molten salt that absorbs and shops the vitality from the 70,000 mirrors that encompass it.
Al Jabers crew organized the experience to Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Photo voltaic Park, among the many worlds largest, to showcase the UAEs local weather work. As spectacular because the photo voltaic farm is, Im simply as intrigued by the experience to the location. We elevate off from a helipad in Abu Dhabi, getting a shocking, if transient, view of the skyscrapers which have emerged from the desert that 60 years in the past was an impoverished neighborhood affected by the decline of the pearl-diving commerce. From there, we fly over the Persian Gulf, the place I can spot a few of the UAEs offshore oil rigs within the distance, contributing to the practically 3 million barrels of oil the nation produces day by day.
Learn extra: Why Renewables Are Key to COP28 Success
Al Jaber is on the heart of this vitality ecosystem. At age 50, the bespectacled govt runs ADNOC and serves because the chairman of Masdar, the state-owned firm he co-founded that now operates renewable-energy initiatives in over 40 international locations. After we sit down, he addresses me warmly, and jumps proper into his rsum. He was appointed to run ADNOC in 2016, he says, months after the world had inked the Paris Settlement, partly to future-proof the enterprise amid the worldwide transition away from fossil fuels. They wished a wise, progressive disruption, he says.
Progressive is a relative time period. Al Jaber hasnt dedicated ADNOC to chopping its oil manufacturing, nor has he charted a path for it to grow to be a renewables firm. As an alternative, the corporate is investing greater than $150 billion on progress initiatives, together with increasing its crude-oil manufacturing capability to five million barrels per day by 2030. A fraction of that cash, $15 billion, is devoted to decreasing the emissions that oil extraction will generate. That mentioned, it has led to some enchancment: Offshore oil rigs now run on electrical energy, and digital instruments enable the corporate to map areas the place vitality is wasted. And the corporate has begun constructing big-budget carbon-capture initiatives.

As COP28 chief, he has known as on different oil firms to return to Dubai with related commitments to crack down on leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gasoline, and to decarbonize their very own operations. If it wasnt for what Ive been in a position to do, and reveal to all people on this {industry}, I wouldnt be able to persuade them, he says. The conversations havent been simple, with some state-owned oil firms specifically resisting aggressive proposals.
Al Jaber describes his strategy as realism. Oil is in excessive demand, and even in essentially the most aggressive decarbonization situations, we’ll nonetheless want some provide by the center of the century. He argues its finest that no matter oil we use has the bottom carbon content material obtainable. Thats particularly essential within the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the place oil is so low cost that it’s going to probably stay within the international vitality combine longer than oil from anyplace else.
Decarbonizing oil and gasoline is definitely inadequate, and a few argue that it represents a fig leaf for the {industry}. The sectors operations characterize 15% of worldwide energy-related emissions, however the true downside is the product theyre promoting. In September, a U.N. evaluation acknowledged that phasing out all unabated fossil fuels can be indispensable to preserving the Paris Settlement targets inside attain.
So its unsurprising that the criticism of Al Jaber, as a pacesetter of a fossil-fuel firm, has been unrelenting. Greater than 100 members of the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress declared in Could that Al Jaber had severely jeopardized the COP course of and known as on him to resign. This summer season, Gore mentioned in a TED discuss that fossil-fuel pursuits have overtly seized management of the COP course of. Of Al Jaber, Gore mentioned, Hes a pleasant man. Hes a wise man. However a battle of curiosity is a battle of curiosity.
To paraphrase Al Jaber, lets get actual for a minute. Is an oil and gasoline CEO from a petrostate the best candidate to steer a transition away from fossil fuels? The issues are authentic, to say the least. However to see Al Jaber as an agent for resurgent fossil-fuel firms misses the context. Since COVID-19, markets have revalued fossil fuels. The battle in Ukraine led some local weather champions to name for extra oil drilling and gasoline infrastructure to fight Russia. President Bidens signature local weather laws, the Inflation Discount Act, supplies a lifeline to grease firms by way of subsidies for a spread of industry-friendly applied sciences like hydrogen, geothermal, and carbon dioxide elimination. Of the latter, Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub informed an {industry} convention earlier this 12 months, This provides our {industry} a license to proceed to function for the 60, 70, 80 years that I feel its going to be very a lot wanted.
Learn extra: Main Oil Offers Cant Cease The Inexperienced Transition
The truth of a thriving oil {industry} at this crucial juncture has thrust the local weather motion right into a seek for new methods to decarbonize. The activist group 350.org, which rose to prominence opposing oil pipelines, has shifted methods to unite across the banner of advancing options, not simply combating, says govt director Could Boeve. Meaning advocating for renewable vitality, in hopes that can push fossil fuels out of the combination. A gaggle of greater than 130 firms together with the likes of Ikea and eBay signed on to a letter lobbying policymakers to section out the use and manufacturing of fossil fuels, an initiative that might have been unthinkable even just a few years in the past. If you discuss to the {industry}, they are saying, effectively, the demand continues to be there, says Mara Mendiluce, the pinnacle of the We Imply Enterprise Coalition, which organized the letter. Have been mobilizing to point out that truly demand is in decline.
COP28 negotiators to date appear to agree on one a part of this query: theyve discovered widespread floor with a dedication to triple renewable-energy capability. However the talks over an settlement for international locations to section down fossil fuels haven’t discovered related consensus.
Al Jaber acknowledges the hole. His technique to beat it has characteristically centered on altering the financial math to make clear vitality a greater funding. He has tried to provoke everybody from the utility {industry} to non-public finance, pushing to get cash flowing. And he has given renewable-energy firms a center-stage function and elevated their issues, like allowing reform and redesigning energy markets.

In a little bit of symbolism, when he visited New York Metropolis for the U.N. Basic Meeting in September, he left the confines of midtown Manhattan, the place ministers and authorities officers gap up for days, to ring the bell on the New York Inventory Trade. Whats good for the retailers is nice for Dubai, mentioned Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, one of many UAEs founding fathers. Al Jaber, it appears, is bringing the identical strategy to local weather. On the street over the previous 12 months, he has met enterprise leaders like Mike Bloomberg along with political leaders like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and non secular leaders like Pope Francis.
For all his diplomacy, he does resent the non-public criticism. You requested me, is it honest? It’s completely not honest, he tells me, pausing to wave off aides telling him that we had run out of time. My entire observe document and my expertise have been centered round sustainability, financial diversification, mission administration, and supply.
A key query going into COP28 is whether or not different market gamers will come alongside. Two days after my interview with Al Jaber, I sat down with Kerry within the Palaces cavernous lunch corridor as local weather and vitality ministers from all over the world milled concerning the room. Simply as Kerry launched into his tackle how inflation has affected local weather motion, we heard somebody shouting, John! John!
It was Abdulaziz Bin Salman al Saud, Saudi Arabias Power Minister and half-brother of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kerry obliquely requested for affirmation that the dominion was on board for some undisclosed a part of the talks: My good good friend, Kerry mentioned, you assured us, appropriate? Abdulaziz replied, to laughter amongst these round us, It relies upon…
Behind the scenes it has been clear the Saudis are key to Al Jabers success or failure in reconciling the diverging wants of the local weather disaster and the fossil-fuel {industry}. The nation has the worlds second largest oil reserves and has traditionally labored to guard its fossil-fuel financial system in local weather negotiations. The extent to which there’s any ambition relies on whether or not Saudi Aramco thinks its a great factor, says one official with information of the discussions amongst oil and gasoline firms, referring to the Saudi nationwide oil firm.
Large oil producers will not be the one impediment to broad settlement at COP28. The U.S. and Europe have traditionally resisted measures which may maintain them chargeable for the prices of their emissions. India and China have traditionally resisted calls for to section out coal. In concept, the UAE is effectively positioned to bridge a few of these gaps, because of good relations with practically all gamers. The time has come for us to capitalize on our experience gained through the years, the relationships weve created, says Al Jaber.
Learn extra: How the Inflation Discount Act Has Reshaped the united statesand The World
The officers closest to talks largely view Al Jaber as a good-faith actor. I imagine that hes absolutely dedicated, says Maros Sefcovic, the official overseeing local weather coverage within the European Union. They’ve an unimaginable problem forward of them, says Tina Stege, local weather envoy for the Marshall Islands, however our expectations are excessive.
That doesnt imply that COP28 shall be a hit. Al Jabers business-minded strategy has led to a collection of confounding selections. He cycled by means of PR companies. He has relied on McKinsey for steerage, regardless of the companies lack of know-how navigating delicate local weather talks. And he spent months on a listening tour, which some say set again negotiations.
Upon returning house from Abu Dhabi, I mirrored on the query being requested broadly within the local weather neighborhood: Is he legit? Regardless of all of the awkwardness of his place, I discover him to be constant. Realism to Al Jaber means accepting {that a} transfer away from fossil fuels will occur solely when the economics change. Within the meantime, theres revenue for him to make in oil. For all our sake, lets hope that adjustments quickly.
With reporting by Julia Zorthian