DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Emirati president-designate for the upcoming United Nations COP28 environment conference provided a full-throated defense Saturday of his country hosting the talks, dismissing those who “just go on the attack without understanding anything, without understanding who we are.”
Climate activists roundly slammed Sultan al-Jaber’s visit as the president-designate of the talks since he serves as the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which is lookingfor to increase its production of carbon-emitting crude oil and natural gas.
Back priorto a peaceful, hometown crowd and an open mediator after participatingin the U.N. General Assembly, al-Jaber pointed to his 20 years of work on sustainable energy as a indication that he and the Emirates represent the finest opportunity to reach a agreement to address environment modification worldwide.
“The world just, for whatever factor, views us as an oil-and-gas country,” he stated. “We have moved beyond oil and gas 20 years earlier. We accepted the energy shift 20 years earlier.”
He included: “We puton’t endedupbeing enthusiastic or ideological or so psychological. We’re business-oriented. We’re results-driven.”
Al-Jaber, a 50-year-old longtime environment envoy, is a reliedon confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He’s been behind 10s of billions of dollars invested or promised towards eco-friendly energy in the federation of 7 sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula — however likewise leads an oil business that pumps some 4 million barrels of crude a day and hopes to broaden to 5 million daily.
Addressing the world’s dependence on crude oil, al-Jaber provided a difficulty to the audience listening to him at Dubai’s aesthetically striking Museum of the Future: Tell him how to instantly stop the usage of all fossil fuels.
“Some are promoting the reality that we can simply disconnect the world from