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He’s the CEO of a major polluter, but Sultan Al Jaber will likely be well received and even congratulated when he arrives. also COP26 climate summit In Glasgow starting this weekend.
Al Jaber, chairman of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company that supplies about 3 percent of the world’s oil, has another job. He is the United Arab Emirates’ special climate ambassador and the founder of a multibillion-dollar state-backed company that invests in renewable energy.
For more than a decade, he has sought to position the Persian Gulf state as a leader in environmental issues, acting under the orders of the de facto ruler of Abu Dhabi, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
In the latest of these initiatives, the United Arab Emirates promised net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the first government in the region to make such a statement. It joins the growing list of countries making long-term commitments that are difficult to assess.
“He is at the forefront of climate action,” said Karim Elgendy, who studies Middle East environmental issues at Chatham House, a London research organization.
Serving as an environmental advocate and a fossil fuel sales executive may seem like a contradiction. But apparently not in the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven states, including Abu Dhabi, which finances oil production in the other six.
Emirates sees pressure for green energy not as a threat, but as a “unique opportunity”. Mr. Al Jaber is a partner where he can leverage his expertise and financial strength. interview earlier this year.
Make no mistake: Abu Dhabi’s leadership wants to maintain a market for the Emirate’s enormous oil reserves, sufficient for more than 60 years of production at current rates.
The emirates produce around three million barrels of oil a day, mostly through the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC. This revenue secures much of the country’s economy, funds the government, and helps support the urban centers of futuristic office towers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
But the royal families leading the Emirates seem to have decided, in partnership with most of the rest of the world, that it’s better to be part of the solution to global warming—or at least they seem so. (The country offered to host COP28 in two years.)
“There’s a business rationale behind the net zero target,” said Karen Young, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, a research organization in Washington. “It’s branding a government hydrocarbon producer in the class of finders rather than blockers.”
Analysts say reaching the net zero target even by 2050 won’t be easy: The Emirates have one of the world’s highest emitters of CO2 per capita, far more than power plants. But under the climate accounting used in the COP, oil exported by Abu Dhabi is counted as emissions from customers who burn it, such as China and Japan, not the producing state.
Still, the goal is likely to encourage action and investment.
“You need an ambitious goal to move things in the right direction,” said Steven Griffiths, senior vice president of research and development at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. “The country is probably in the best position of any Gulf country to do that,” he said.
The emirates plan to spend 600 billion dirhams, or $163 billion, over the next three decades to reduce emissions from power plants currently burning massive amounts of natural gas to cool buildings in the fierce Gulf heat. Most of the money will go to solar farms that can be set up among the sands of the Emirates. Another clean power source will be a group of four nuclear reactors recently built in Abu Dhabi by South Korean contractors and being phased out.
Analysts say spending so much money in a small country of 9.9 million that is far ahead of neighboring oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in turning their economy away from oil must have had a big impact. Emirates, for example, is a regional hub for finance, logistics and tourism.
And more funding is likely to come to support the green agenda, such as renovating buildings so they don’t consume so much power for air conditioning or converting transportation to electric power or hydrogen. Raad Alkadiri, managing director of energy and climate at Eurasia Group, a political risk firm, said the Emirate is one of the places with wealth and the will to implement “loss leader projects about being the most advanced”.
John Kerry, President Biden’s climate ambassador and a regular visitor to Mr. Al Jaber in the United Arab Emirates, said: said in a twitter message He said its commitment is “an example for other energy-producing countries”.
The commitment may already have had an impact. Last Saturday, at a conference in Riyadh, officials in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and a frequent rival to the United Arab Emirates, said they would commit to reaching net zero by 2060.
There is of course an element of image polishing here. The announcements made the Emiratis and Saudis appear virtuous in front of the world leaders gathered for COP26. They also brought gains to Mr. Kerry, who attended the Saudi conference, in his efforts to fulfill his commitments.
But these commitments also signal that the major petro-states now think that the world is changing and that they need to take action to combat global warming.
“There has been a calculation that being at the table will allow you to shape this new world and the new climate economy,” said Mr Elgendy.
These oil states say this new climate economy must adapt to burning fossil fuels.
Al Jaber claimed at the Riyadh conference with Saudi officials that oil and gas will be needed to power the world economy in the coming years, creating a source of income to pay for investments in new energy sources.
Mr. Al Jaber said the recent price shocks in natural gas and oil that have caused electricity bills to skyrocket and some manufacturers to scale down or shut down are due to premature cuts in investment in these resources.
“The world has sleepwalked into a supply shortage,” he said. He added that oil and gas must remain “mainstream” during the so-called energy transition.
These views run counter to the conclusions of some climate experts who say there are new investments in oil and gas. should stop immediately if the world wants to stop climate change.
ADNOC is one of the few oil companies making significant investments to increase production. Last summer, Emirates Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raising the output quota has led to a high-profile standoff with the Saudis since it was resolved.
Five years ago, Mr. Al Jaber was appointed CEO of ADNOC, attracting private investment through the sale of stakes in the company’s infrastructure to investors such as BlackRock and KKR, and oil and gas exploration deals with companies, including: US-based Occidental Petroleum and Italian Eni. Such transactions have brought in about $26 billion over the past five years, according to Energy Intelligence analyst Colby Connelly, a research firm.
In a sign that the oil giant is ready to adapt to climate needs, ADNOC recently announced that it will merge with British oil company BP to build facilities in Britain and the United Arab Emirates to produce large quantities of hydrogen, the clean-burning fuel. In the future, it could be used to power truck fleets or to make steel.
Hydrogen could even be a tool to replace oil exports. ADNOC shipped hydrogen in the form of ammonia to Japan, one of the most important customers of Gulf oil.
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