COP28: Resolving a climate, energy crisis

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be holding its annual conference, what is known as COP28, from November 30 to December 12 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is already warming up to be an historical meeting. This will be the 28th meeting of the Conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and UAE special envoy for Climate Change, and managing director of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has been appointed to serve as COP 28 president-designate.

ADNOC is the largest oil company in UAE with a brand value well in excess of $14b. On his appointment earlier this year, Mr Al Jaber said: “Working with the UNFCCC executive secretary alongside the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion and the UAE Youth Climate Champion, I will strive to build consensus amongst parties to drive climate action. 

Together, we will prioritise efforts to accelerate emissions reductions through a pragmatic energy transition, reform land use, and transform food systems. We will work to mobilise solutions for vulnerable countries, operationalise loss and damage, and deliver the most inclusive conference possible.”

The appointment of a seasoned executive, cognisant of the energy market and the climate reality was greeted with horror from the usual corners. Activists with their usual colourful language claimed that the appointment of an oil company executive to lead COP28 was like putting “the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty”.

The attitude of some Western NGOs to the appointment of Mr Al Jaber tells one everything that is wrong with the activist industry. A conversation on how we can collectively fight against the dangers of climate change cannot happen without all the players in the room. While there may be consensus on K Street in Washington DC, a street where the big lobbyists and NGOs sit in America that doesn’t translate into a global consensus. 

There is some concern in the West that activist groups are trying to turn the climate crisis into an energy crisis by failing to realise that hydrocarbons are with us for the foreseeable future. In Africa we are already facing this climate crisis and an energy crisis. About 900 million Africans are still using charcoal and firewood to prepare meals for themselves. More than 600 million Africans still have no access to electricity. Africa receives less than 0.01 percent of global finance from the global financial community for renewable energy investment. That money is almost seven times more expensive in Africa than elsewhere. 

A country like Uganda developing a modest and yet vital oil project in the most responsible manner is then subjected to a global campaign dominated by an astonishing degree of misrepresentations, exaggerations and out right falsehoods led by Western NGOs and even politicians in the EU Parliament purportedly on behalf of a climate lobby. The latest fiction was published by Human Rights Watch (HRW) sitting on the 34th Floor of the Empire State Building. 

HRW, among other outlandish claims, stated that Uganda’s oil project would emit more carbon than the continent of Australia notwithstanding the fact that Uganda will produce 200,000 barrels of oil per day while Australia consumes 1 million barrels of oil and millions of tonnes of coal per day. The same groups are obviously uncomfortable with a climate conference in Dubai headed by an executive and transformational leader.

 He may after all inject some common sense and fairness into the discussion to the utter disappointment of the poverty conservationists who masquerade as environmentalists. He may bring facts in place of sound bites and nice sounding slogans that dominated previous COP meetings. 

The energy crisis that poorer nations face, the poverty crisis that many face and the climate crisis that we all face will not be defeated with the poetry of young activists however good those poems maybe. 

Africa is 12 times the size of India and yet has roughly the same population of India. We have the space to triple this population in the next few decades. If we do so without harnessing our energy, fighting poverty and protecting our environment then the world will be no safer and no better. Locking out the energy industry from the climate conversation is simply cutting your nose to spite your face. Let us avoid that.

The writer is an advocate and partner at Kampala Associated Advocates 
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