Aidan Cameron (He/Him)

This year’s annual UN Climate Change Conference, COP 28, has generated plenty of headlines, but unfortunately few have been to do with environmental pledges and policy measures that the conference is designed to encourage. Instead, it has been embroiled in controversy from the start, unsurprising given its choice of host as the oil-rich Middle Eastern autocracy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Hosting major international events in countries with abysmally poor human rights records is always going to attract criticism – last year’s football World Cup in Qatar was a prime example of this. Plenty of headlines around the COP 28 conference, though, are not about the human rights record of UAE, poor as it may be, but surround the content of the event. The conference, which is being held in Dubai from November 30^th to December 12^th, was attracting controversy well before the beginning of the summit. The choice of host, Sultan Al Jaber, has proved to be highly controversial. Al Jaber is the first CEO to host COP, as he leads one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, UAE’s state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Climate activist Greta Thunberg called the appointment “completely ridiculous”, and in May a joint letter from 130 EU and US lawmakers was penned to the UN, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Joe Biden calling on Al Jaber to be removed from his post as the summit’s president.

Al Jaber’s appointment attracted further criticism over the summer, when he was accused of attempting to “greenwash” his image, after it emerged the head of marketing for COP 28, Ramzi Haddad, had anonymously edited both Al Jaber and the summit’s Wikipedia pages to present Al Jaber in a more favourable light, and continued making edits even after his conflict of interest had been revealed. Furthermore, users paid by both ADNOC and Al Jaber’s state-owned renewable energy company, Masdar, had made edits to Al Jaber’s personal Wikipedia page, both to downplay his role at ADNOC and highlight environmental propositions made by Masdar. In addition to this, Dr. Marc Owen Jones, a digital disinformation expert at Qatar’s Hamad bin Khalifa University, found that fake social media profiles had been set up on Twitter, to promote UAE in relation to the conference. Over 100 fake accounts were identified as spreading pro-UAE propaganda and attacking critics in an “organised campaign” – though it was difficult to identify exactly who was behind this, the accounts largely parroted UAE government accounts, and Jones believes is most likely “a PR firm working for an entity in the UAE”.

Just prior to the summit, Al Jaber received widespread attention when he questioned the science behind phasing out fossil fuels. Al Jabar claimed there was “no science” behind calls for a phase out of fossil fuels, and that such action would “take the world back into caves”. This was in response to questioning from Mary Robinson, former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on November 21^st, where Al Jaber’s role at ADNOC was discussed. The comments were met with criticism across the activist, scientific and political communities, and stood in direct opposition to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who stated at COP 28’s opening ceremony: “The science is clear: The 1.5°C limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce, not abate. Phase out, with a clear timeframe”.

Reducing reliance on fossil fuels is clearly an important step for addressing the climate crisis, made even more vital by developments at last year’s COP 27 in Egypt, where major fossil fuel producing nations pushed back on measures that would have called for a rapid cut in fossil fuel use. However, significant progress on this front looks to be unlikely at this year’s COP, for a number of reasons in addition to Al Jaber’s comments.

Firstly, there is opposition from the influential Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In a letter dated December 6^th, OPEC’s secretary general Haitham al-Ghais urged members at the conference to “proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions”. OPEC founding member Saudi Arabia has acted as the leading voice against an agreement which would end fossil fuel use, with Iraqi representatives also issuing statements against such a deal.

Furthermore, the conference is hosting a record number of fossil fuel representatives – 2,456, up from 636 at last year’s summit, hence an increase of almost four times. That number in itself was considered an “explosion”, as it had been a rise of more than 25% from the previous year’s COP 26 in Glasgow (503). Indeed, Melbourne Climate Futures director Jacqueline Peel noted that fossil fuel representatives “outnumber delegates from the most climate vulnerable countries several times over”.

With this increase in fossil fuel representatives, it is particularly concerning for the image of COP that leaked documents, jointly published by the Centre for Climate Reporting and BBC on November 27^th, suggested the UAE planned to use meetings in the build up to COP to arrange fossil fuel deals. The documents included plans constructed by UAE’s COP 28 team for Al Jaber to discuss fossil fuel deals for ADNOC with 15 countries, including China, Colombia, Germany and Egypt, in meetings between July and October. Additionally, plans for discussions around opportunities for Al Jaber’s Masdar and 20 countries were outlined, with the BBC also reporting it had seen email exchange showing COP 28 staff members being told ADNOC and Masdar talking points always needed to be included in briefings. The potential for side deals of this nature flies directly against the core aims of COP and would be a serious breach of standard on the part of both Al Jaber, whose role as president is to encourage countries to reduce emissions, and UAE, which as hosts are expected not to pursue their own commercial self-interest.

The 2015 Paris Agreement saw 195 nations, as well as the European Union, enter into a legally binding international treaty on climate change to keep global temperatures below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, whilst aiming for a goal of 1.5°C. With each passing year it has seemed less likely the goals laid out in the agreement will be met – indeed, just a week before the conference began, a UNEP report put the current expected rate at 2.7°C by the end of the century, well above the 2°C limit. COP 28 will act as the conclusion of the UN’s first ‘Global Stocktake’, a process to evaluate nations progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement, and the findings of which are set to inform talks at the event. It is thus a conference of great significance but appears to be a failure before a deal has even been reached. Though it will take time to fully evaluate the success of the conference, the various controversies have undeniably caused COP a credibility crisis and gave activists reason to be sceptical of the conference and its true aims. COP 29 will be held in Azerbaijan, following Russia’s blocking of any potential EU member host. Significant change will be needed from this year’s conference should COP regain some credibility and be viewed as a force for tackling the climate crisis. Given Azerbaijan’s status as an authoritarian petrostate, one should not be surprised if many of the criticisms of this year’s COP resurface in a years’ time.