DUBAI. The Emirati president of the climate summit COP28, Sultan Al Jaberrefused to want to use his position as president of the conference of the UN for promote oil and energy projects of the Emirates in other countriesas stated in documents revealed this week.
“These allegations are false, incorrect, inaccurate,” he said in Dubai. Sultan Al Jaberquestioned by journalists at an event at the site of the climate conference, on the eve of its opening.
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“It is an attempt to undermine the work of the presidency of the COP28“he assured.
“I ask you a question: do you think that The United Arab Emirates or I need the COP or of the presidency of the COP to establish agreements or commercial relations?” he added.
According to reports revealed on Monday by the Center for Climate Reporting (CCR) and the BBC The preparatory documents for Sultan Al Jaber’s meetings with foreign government representatives consistently contained key points about the two companies he heads: the national oil company Adnoc and the renewable energy company Masdar.
There it issummarized the presence of both companies in different countries and detailed its commercial potential.
Sultan Al Jaber was caught “red-handed”, said the former UN climate chiefChristiana Figueres, on the social network
US senators who have been denouncing for months the influence of pressure groups in the COP considered that these “explosive reports on secret cases to increase the production of Petroleum and gasand the emissions generated by fossil fuelscall into question the integrity of the conference.
The American climatologist Michael Mann asked for the immediate resignation of Sultan Al Jaber or the boycott of COP28.
The Summit organizers later denied having issued a statement about Sultan al-Jaber’s resignation.and they assured that this is another attempt to undermine the success of the forum.
“This press release was not issued by the team of the COP28has no truthful basis and should be completely discarded as fake news,” the organization said in a statement on X, after the statement was apparently issued through an event email address and received by journalists accredited At the climb.
Pressure groups
The controversy continued when the same president of the climate summit stated that all lobby groups are welcome in the COP28.
“All points of view are welcome and all points of view are necessary” in the COP28mentioned Sultan Al Jaber, also head of the national oil company of United Arab Emirates.
And by “everyone”, Al Jaber refers to both national delegations, lobby groups and big oil companies.
The UN climate summits bring together “leaders, experts and influencers” in the “blue zone”dedicated to the negotiations, says UN Climate without making specific mention of the “lobbies”.
But the pressure groups can obtain accreditation either as part of a national delegation or as one of more than two thousand “observer” organizationswhich can be NGO or professional associations. The absence of clear rules on conflicts of interest is often criticized. The statement came amid accusations against the COP28 presidency itself of a flagrant mix of private interests.
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“When we think of pressure groups, we think of closed-door meetings between companies and decision makers,” he explains. Faye Holder, from the InfluenceMap think tank.
But this can also include “publications on social networks, advertising, sponsorships or the use of the weight of professional organizations”, he adds.