COP28: World’s largest oil producing country to host 2023 Climate Change Summit
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UK. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world’s seventh largest oil producing country, will host the 28th United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP28) in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. The conference will be chaired by Sultan Al-Jaber, chief executive of Adnoc, the UAE’s state-owned oil company. Given that fossil fuels are responsible for approximately 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions responsible for climate change, many have argued that there is a clear conflict of interest in keeping oil and gas producers at the helm of climate negotiations.
The UAE is accused of burning more gas than it reports and plans to increase oil production from 3.7 million barrels per day to 5 million by 2027. Some argue that the oil and gas industry could put the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions by investing its vast revenues in curbing gas use and burying captured carbon underground. But independent assessments suggest that the industry will need to permanently leave at least some of its commercially recoverable reserves underground to limit global warming. No oil exporting country, except Colombia, has yet indicated that it will do so. Dubai is bent upon weakening even this small victory. Documents released into an investigation show UAE hosts plan to advise a Colombian minister that Adnoc is “ready” to help the South American country develop its oil and gas reserves.
Britain has caused ridicule by expanding its North Sea oil fields less than two years after urging the world to raise its climate ambitions as summit host. Even before the discussions have begun at the summit, it seems that something similar is going to happen with the United Arab Emirates. Oil consumption and dependence The UAE’s rapidly growing population of 9.9 million (of which only 1 million are Emirati citizens) has the sixth highest per capita CO2 emissions globally.
Citizens are used to driving gas-guzzling cars with fuel priced well below international market rates and using air conditioning most of the year due to utility subsidies. Visitors and convention visitors expect cool shopping malls, swimming pools and lush golf courses that rely entirely on energy-guzzling desalinated water. Despite decades of policies aimed at diversifying the country’s economy away from oil, the UAE’s hydrocarbon sector makes up a quarter of GDP, half of the country’s exports and 80% of government revenues.
For example, oil revenues help buy socio-economic stability for local people by providing public sector facilities. This situation is a central tenet of the Arabian Gulf social contract, in which citizens of the six Gulf states occupy mostly bureaucratic public sector positions, driving the oil-based economy with migrant workers dominating the non-oil private sector. . Tech-improvements, goals and future How does the UAE plan to cut its emissions? Adnoc and other international oil companies are pushing for select technologies (for skeptics, a ”green cover” for further climate damage) to preserve their core business model: oil extraction.
Along with the broader oil and gas industry, Adnoc has invested in creating hydrogen fuel from carbon sequestration and oil extraction byproducts. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such measures, even if fully implemented, would have only a small impact on greenhouse gas emissions. The UAE was the first in the Middle East to ratify the Paris climate agreement and commit to net zero emissions by 2050. With almost unlimited sunshine and ample sovereign wealth, the UAE ranks 18th globally per capita and first among OPEC countries for solar energy capacity.
Solar power now meets about 4.5% of the UAE’s electricity demand and projects in the pipeline will see output rise from 23 gigawatts (GW) today to 50 GW by 2031. The Baraka Nuclear Power Plant (the Arab world’s first) started generating electricity in 2020. While it meets only 1% of the country’s electricity demand, when fully operational in 2030, this could increase to 25%. The oil sector is inherently capital-intensive, not labour-intensive, and so it cannot provide sufficient jobs to Emiratis. The UAE will need to transition to a knowledge-based economy with productive employment in sectors linked to resource extraction. In the UAE, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala has been tasked with implementing this change.
It has invested in various high-tech areas ranging from commercial satellites to research and development in renewable energy. But even if the UAE were to achieve net zero by some measures domestically, continuing to export oil internationally means it will be used elsewhere, and so the climate crisis will continue to grow. Self-interest: Is Dubai destined for disappointment? Parts of the Middle East, already one of the hottest places in the world, could become too hot to live in over the next 50 years, according to some predictions. Rising temperatures threaten the UAE’s tourism and conference-hosting sectors, which have grown rapidly since the 1990s (third-degree burns and heatstroke won’t appeal to international visitors). In such a situation, the possibility of a cosmetic announcement to further its global leadership ambitions cannot be ruled out.
At some point, one of the major oil exporting countries should announce plans to leave some of its commercially recoverable oil permanently unused. COP28 provides an ideal forum for this. A participating country could make such a commitment with the caveat that it must first build infrastructure powered by renewable energy and transform the business model of its national oil company to one that supplies renewable energy globally. Is, not of fossil fuels. The UAE has the private capital and sovereign assets needed to build a post-oil economy.
Disclaimer: IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.
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