Who is Sultan al Jaber, and why was an oil boss chosen to run a climate conference?
When the oil chief was announced as COP28 president in January, campaigners likened it to "appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures".
Wednesday 13 December 2023 10:08, UK
If you could pick one person to try to solve the worsening climate crisis, who would you pick?
That person has been tasked with leading the United Nations COP climate summit, in a year "near certain" to be the hottest ever on record, with time running out for the dramatic action UN scientists say is needed to stop climate change hitting us hard.
When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced it had picked Sultan al Jaber to run this year's COP28 climate talks, jaws dropped.
Because he also happens to be the boss of one of the world's largest oil companies, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).
But after he successfully brokered the first pledge by governments to "transition away" from fossil fuels in Dubai, was the decision to appoint him "completely ridiculous," in the words of Greta Thunberg, or, as others put it, a "unique" opportunity?
When jaws dropped
When the oil chief was announced as COP28 president in January, campaigners like 350.org likened it to "appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures".
Immediately calls mounted for the UAE to choose someone else, or at least have him resign as oil company chief while he was COP president.
Meanwhile ADNOC was ploughing on with plans to almost double its oil production capacity from 2.7 million barrels of oil per day in 2021, to 5 million by 2027.
Those calls for him to step down from ADNOC fell flat.
After all, he co-founded the state's MASDAR renewables company in 2006, which now has investments in over 40 countries, including those western funders have been reluctant to back.
And who else could have taken on the COP role?
"He has a track record of leadership in clean energy and industry in the UAE," said Lee Beck from Clean Air Task Force (CATF), which works with governments and businesses in the region to help shift to a cleaner energy future.
Who is Sultan al Jaber?
Mr Jaber was born in 1973 in the emirate Umm al Quwain.
He does not belong to the royal families that rule the country, but has held a number of high positions in Emirati society, including cabinet minister roles since 2013.
The tall, media shy business executive, who rarely gives interviews, was also "responsible for censorship of all media content in the country" when he served as chairman of the National Media Council (NMC) from 2015-2020, according to Amnesty International.
A spokesperson for his COP28 team said the NMC "was abolished in June 2021, and as such is not relevant to media expression in the UAE today or Dr Sultan's work".
He has led the UAE's climate diplomacy since 2020, and before that between 2010-2016.
'Terrific choice'
"Terrific choice" gushed former US Secretary of State turned climate envoy John Kerry about Mr Jaber, as did many of his counterparts.
And many see a logic to his appointment. As fossil fuels are the number one cause of climate change, those linked to them need to be involved in the solutions.
Laurence Tubiana, key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement, this summer said to bring the fossil fuel industry along on the switch to a clean energy future.
The presence of fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists at COPs has long been controversial. This year they were given an even greater role as the UAE brought them into the fold with its "game changing" plan.
"For many years, the COP process has been inputting the same actions and expecting different results. In Dubai, we are doing things differently. We are bringing everyone to the table because everyone is needed, and that includes the energy industry," a COP28 spokesperson told Sky News ahead of the conference.
Read more from Sky News:
UN tells world 'get a grip' as 1.5C target being missed
Supporters also point to the UAE's incredible expansion of nuclear and solar. It has just built an enormous four-reactor nuclear power plant more or less on time and on budget - a feat that eludes many other countries like the UK.
"So there's multiple reasons why the UAE is an important player," said Lee Beck from CATF.
At home, the UAE plans to spend $54bn (£43bn) on increasing renewable power until 2030. But ADNOC has earmarked three times as much cash $150bn (£119bn) to expand oil and gas capacity in a shorter timeframe (by 2027).
And in August, Sky News revealed the UAE had missed its own clean power target.
Is it fair to single out the UAE?
This is also not the first time a fossil fuel producer is hosting a COP climate summit. Egypt has stacks of gas, and the UK is pumping declining amounts of oil and gas from the North Sea.
And the UAE is the sixth largest supplier of refined oil products - including jet fuel - to the UK. But then COP26 president, Alok Sharma, was not an oil boss but an MP used to public scrutiny.
"I'm sure [al Jaber] has done a ton of negotiations round boardrooms," said Tom Evans from E3G, a think tank that closely follows COP negotiations.
But a COP summit is "not just a closed-door meeting", he added. It comes with a "unique pressure" where "the world's eyes are looking at what he can deliver", as they have been this week.
Shift in rhetoric or caught red handed?
But while the backlash in January was "pretty intense", according to Mr Evans, in the lead up to the Dubai summit, Mr Jaber's team "stepped up the intensity of their work".
After being criticised in May for urging the phase out of "fossil fuel emissions", in June he declared that the phase down of all fossil fuels, not just their emissions, was "inevitable".
Focusing on emissions allows fossil fuels to continue at scale, as long as those emissions are captured and stored - but this technology is still extremely expensive and hard to come by.
This language formed the centre of the debate in Dubai, with countries arguing over whether to "phase out" or "phase down", but eventually having to settle for "transitioning away".
Mr Jaber's new openness on that divisive fossil fuel question even managed to persuade Tasneem Essop, head of the Climate Action Network, which represents hundreds of NGOs at COP and had led calls for him to resign as ADNOC CEO.
"His rhetoric started shifting," said Ms Essop. "So he has been listening, he has been engaging."
He further won favour in October when he helped rescue faltering talks on a fund for vulnerable nations to cope with climate change - telling countries that billions of lives depended on getting a deal.
But the hard-won trust was tested to its limits when bombshell allegations before COP28 accused him of using it to strike new oil and gas deals. The COP28 team called the alleged leaked documents, reported by the Centre for Climate Reporting .
"Caught red handed," blasted Christiana Figueres, former head of the United Nations body that runs COP (UNFCCC) on X, formerly known as Twitter. "The COP presidency has no other option but to now unequivocally step up the transparency… [it] will be under scrutiny like no other before."
Mr Evans said the UAE's presidency has "improved, but has a long way to go still".
Yet Mr Jaber's team insists he "knows what the industry can do, and he can hold it to account like no other president in the history of COP".
His supporters credit him with using his role to sign up 20 oil and gas companies to a new voluntary climate pledge before the summit kicked off.
But he will ultimately largely be judged on the language he has persuaded 197-odd countries to agree to in the final pact after two weeks of fraught negotiations.
Mr Evans said: "It will be citizens around the world who will be saying whether that's good enough."