COP28 hosts foreshadow the fossil fuel industry’s new tactic - stalling

When the world’s seventh largest oil producer was named host of COP28, or to give it it’s full name, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 28th Conference of the Parties, you’d be forgiven for lowering your expectations of any diplomatic breakthrough. It’s fair to say that when the United Arab Emirates then named the CEO of the state-run oil company as the COP28 President, it wasn’t universally welcomed - Alice Harrison of Global Witness reportedly said “You wouldn’t invite arms dealers to lead peace talks. So why let oil executives lead climate talks?”

Although Sultan al-Jabr has spoken of keeping the goals of the Paris Agreement alive, other comments from him and other UAE government officials have hinted at a new tactic that may been gaining traction in the fossil fuel industry. With outright climate denial becoming more and more untenable, there appears to be a move towards stalling any phase out of fossil fuels. Al-Jabr signalled this approach when we was appointed, saying “we need to reverse emissions while moving economies forward, enable an inclusive and just transition that leaves no one behind” and more recently advocated scaling up carbon capture technologies, an as yet unproven technology, as a way of advocating for the phase out of fossil fuel emissions, rather than production.

The clear message here is that the fossil fuel industry will use the current cost of living crisis to argue that fossil fuel production needs to continue to provide energy security, and that technology that has yet to be proven at scale will come to the rescue.