New data has shown that the state oil company of the United Arab Emirates, whose CEO will preside over imminent UN climate negotiations, has the largest net-zero-busting expansion plans of any company in the world.
Sultan Al Jaber who is the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), is also the president of the Cop28 summit, which begins on 30 November.
The researchers behind the new data said that Adnoc’s huge planned expansion of oil and gas production was a clear conflict of interest and they said his position was “ridiculous”.
Nations will again attempt to agree to cut fossil fuel use and triple renewable energy, at the COP28. The summit comes at the end of a year in which global temperatures have soared, intense impacts of extreme weather have wrecked lives and there have been repeated warnings that the world already has plans to exploit far more fossil fuel reserves than can safely be burned.
The data which is from the Global Oil and Gas Exit List (Gogel), a public database detailing the activities of more than 1,600 companies representing 95% of global production, shows that almost all companies are ignoring warnings from climate scientists that new oil and gas fields cannot be developed if global temperature rise is to be kept to the internationally agreed 1.5C limit.
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Recall that the UN warned last week that fossil fuel producers were planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over. Experts have also called the plans “insanity” and said they “throw humanity’s future into question”.
A long series of scientific studies has concluded that most existing oil, gas and coal reserves need to remain in the ground to tackle the climate emergency but major fossil fuel companies and petrostates have yet to stop exploring for more.
In his reaction, Nils Bartsch, head of oil and gas research at the NGO Urgewald, which produces Gogel along with partners said that the magnitude of the industry’s expansion plans is truly frightening.
“To keep 1.5C alive, a speedy, managed decline in oil and gas production is vital. Instead, oil and gas companies are building a bridge to climate chaos.”
Bartsch also criticised the dual role of Al Jaber. “I think it’s ridiculous. I’m not sure how a person that’s responsible for this kind of oil and gas expansion is fit to lead the climate negotiations. It is the most obvious conflict of interest there can be,” he said.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
