RAN Responds to Oil Executive Appointed as President of UN Climate Conference
The following statement is In response to Sultan Al Jaber, chief of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), being named as President-Designate of the 2023 UN climate summit, COP28, to be held in Dubai this coming November.
“As our global climate crisis claims more lives and destroys more communities every year, it beggars belief that the head of a state-owned fossil fuel company will lead the UN climate talks in 2023. The fossil fuel industry is not only the main driver of our climate crisis, but it has aggressively and intentionally blocked real progress on climate change for decades.
Sultan Al Jaber’s company, ADNOC, is one of the world’s biggest oil producers. What is even more distressing are the company’s plans to become one of largest expanders of the oil and gas sector in the coming years.
Pakistan experienced catastrophic flooding this past year. Europe endured the hottest summer on record in 2022. More frequent and more intense hurricanes, floods and wildfires are battering the East and West coasts of North America.
Meanwhile, fossil fuel lobbyists have been flooding the UN climate talks over the past several years — threatening to turn what should be a global movement to collectively tackle our climate crisis into a greenwashed consensus for business as usual.
At minimum, Sultan Al Jaber should step down from his roles at ADNOC. At best, he should decline the COP28 presidency. We continue to hope for better.”
— Aditi Sen, Climate and Energy Program Director, Rainforest Action Network