UAE planned for lobbying fossil fuel deals at COP28, says report

A new report alleges that Sultan Al Jaber, President of the annual UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), planned on lobbying for fossil fuel deals with at least 15 countries at the summit.

Why is this important?
Dubai is hosting the COP28 this week.

Internal records leaked by a whistleblower show that host country officials prepared “talking points” to further oil and gas deals with nearly 30 foreign government attendees, including China, Canada, Mozambique and Australia.

Standing out among these are the meeting plans to further the interests of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), headed by the same COP28 president, Al Jaber. His position and the leaked documents (reviewed by the BBC and Centre for Climate Reporting) have garnered criticism.

Notably, fossil fuel lobbyists have attended UN climate talks more than 7,200 times in the past 20 years, according to another report.

COP28 starts on Thursday and will go on till December 12 in Dubai, and expects 70,000 delegates in attendance, including world leaders and government officials from nearly 200 countries.

It will discuss nations’ efforts in limiting global warming and assess how far off we are from hitting goals of limiting carbon emissions.

President Joe Biden is not scheduled to attend the climate conference as he is occupied with the Israel-Hamas war negotiations, said the White House.