The Climate Hypocrisy of COP28

Matt Bernardini asks why the UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in a nation that has supercharged the very crisis they will be discussing

Sultan al-Jaber, the COP28 President-Designate talks during the ADIPEC Oil and Energy conference in Abu Dhabi, UAE, 2 October 2023. Photo: Kamran Jebreili/Associated Press/Alamy

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is supposed to be the premier world event when it comes to tackling the biggest problem of our time. It’s a chance for leaders from around the globe to hash out complex solutions and set a green agenda for the future. It’s also a chance to highlight and reward nations who have already begun implementing greener policies.

Yet for these reasons, the upcoming UN climate summit known as COP28 is set up to be a total disappointment. The conference will take place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a nation that has been far from a leader on climate policy, and seems to be intent on continuing to emphasise fossil fuel production. 

According to The Guardian, for nearly a decade, the UAE has failed to report its emissions of methane gas to the UN. This puts the UAE in company with other petrostates like Saudi Arabia, which also do not report their emissions, in violation of UN rules. 

Even more ironically, the head of the conference is Sultan Al Jaber, the head of the UAE’s state oil company Adnoc. As the de facto leader of the gathering, Al Jaber has a responsibility to ensure that actions are taken that would rapidly decrease humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels. Yet his company seems intent on doing the opposite. Adnoc has massive expansion plans which entail producing the equivalent of 7.5 billion barrels of oil.