‘You Couldn’t Make It Up’: Head of UAE Oil Company Appointed Chair of UN Climate Summit

The appointment of Sultan al-Jaber is "tantamount to putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty," said one campaigner.

April 1, 2023 | Source: Common Dreams | by Julia Conley

The appointment of Sultan al-Jaber is “tantamount to putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty,” said one campaigner.

Climate campaigners on Thursday warned that the United Arab Emirates all but guaranteed that the United Nations’ annual climate conference has already been captured by the fossil fuel industry as it announced the head of the country’s state-run oil company will be presiding over the summit later this year.

The UAE announced Sultan al-Jaber, who heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), the world’s 12th-largest oil giant by production, will serve as president of the 28th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in November.

In addition to running ADNOC, al-Jaber is the UAE’s climate enjoy and minister of industry and technology as well as the founding CEO of Masdar, a renewable energy firm in Abu Dhabi in which ADNOC has a 24% stake.