ALTÉRRA was billed as the world’s largest private investment vehicle to “focus entirely on climate solutions”. COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber hailed its launch as “a defining moment” for creating a new era of international climate finance.

Yet four months later, one of the initial funds ALTÉRRA backed with a $300-million commitment agreed to buy a major fossil gas pipeline in North America, Climate Home has discovered.

In March, BlackRock’s “Global Infrastructure Fund IV” acquired half of the 475 km-long Portland Natural Gas Transmission System, with Morgan Stanley taking the rest in a deal worth $1.14 billion overall.

That acquisition would not have come as a surprise to the fund’s investors.

When US-based BlackRock pitched it to the State of Connecticut’s Investment Advisory Council back in 2022, the world’s biggest asset manager gave a flavour of where their money would likely end up. Its presentation – seen by Climate Home – featured a list of “indicative investments” including highly-polluting sectors such as gas power plants and transportation networks, liquefied natural gas (LNG), airports, terminals and shipping.

Climate Home does not know whether ALTÉRRA saw the same presentation, nor did the UAE firm respond directly to a question asking if it was aware before the COP28 announcement that the BlackRock fund might invest in those sectors.

An ALTÉRRA spokesperson told Climate Home its “investments seek to build the energy systems of tomorrow, while supporting the transition of existing energy infrastructure towards a just and managed clean energy ecosystem”.

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In addition to the gas pipeline, BlackRock’s infrastructure fund has so far invested in carbon capture, waste management, utilities maintenance services, telecom infrastructure, data centres and the production of industrial gases, according to regulatory filings, a BlackRock job advertisement and press reports accessed by Climate Home.

A BlackRock spokesperson said its global infrastructure fund franchise “targets investments in solutions across the energy transition value chain, driven by the long-term trends of decarbonization, decentralization, and digitalization to support the stability and affordability of energy supply around the world”.

Andreas Sieber, associate director of global policy and campaigns at climate advocacy group 350.org, said Climate Home’s findings “confirm our worst fears”. “The ALTÉRRA fund uses a masquerade of green progress while funnelling investment into fossil fuel pipelines and gas projects, which are the biggest causes of the climate crisis,” he told Climate Home.

Climate finance is a hot topic at UN negotiations, with countries expected to set a new global goal at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, this November, amid persistent calls for higher amounts to help poorer nations boost clean energy production.

The COP28 presidency said last year that ALTÉRRA would “drive forward international efforts to create a fairer climate finance system, with an emphasis on improving access to funding for the Global South”. Al-Jaber added that “its launch reflects… the UAE’s efforts to make climate finance available, accessible and affordable”.

But the sparse details provided at the time prompted climate justice activists to question the real impact it would have in countries that most need financial support to adopt clean energy and adapt to a warming world. Only about a sixth of the fund – $5 billion – was earmarked as “capital to incentivize investment into the Global South”.

Follow the money

ALTÉRRA is a so-called ‘fund of funds’. Instead of directly investing money in individual companies or assets, it puts its cash into a series of funds run by other investment firms. At COP28, it committed a total of $6.5 billion to funds managed by BlackRock, Brookfield and TPG, without setting out how the remaining $23.5 billion would be spent.

Since then, ALTÉRRA has not announced any further investments. Its chief executive, Majid Al Suwaidi, told Bloomberg this month that the fund is “actively planning the next phase of allocations”, without giving further details.

The launch of #ALTÉRRA marks the start of three unique alliances with global asset managers, @Brookfield, @BlackRock, and @tpg.

Together, we share the same vision, to bridge the climate investment gap and finance a new climate economy. pic.twitter.com/7yEXOyZqpK

— ALTÉRRA (@Alterrafund) December 1, 2023

Most of the funds picked by ALTÉRRA remain at an early stage and have yet to announce completed transactions or are still trying to raise more capital from investors. The most notable exception is BlackRock’s fourth Global Infrastructure Fund. By the time it won the $300-million commitment from ALTÉRRA in Dubai, the vehicle was ready to deploy its money.

ALTÉRRA told Climate Home its investment in the BlackRock vehicle is in line with its goals of getting climate finance “flowing quickly and at scale” and of partnering “with funds that invest in the energy transition and accelerate pathways to net-zero”.

Announcing its first $4.5-billion closing in October 2022, BlackRock said the fund would “continue to target investments in climate solutions, while also supporting the infrastructure needed to ensure a stable, affordable energy supply during the transition”.

In private conversations with potential investors, the asset manager spelled out more clearly what that meant.

Its presentation to the State of Connecticut in December 2022 showed that the fund would not only invest in things like renewable energy, electrification and battery storage, but also in fossil gas power plants and pipelines, LNG and transportation infrastructure like airports, shipping and terminals.

A slide from BlackRock’s presentation of the Global Infrastructure Fund IV to investors

In line with this strategy, BlackRock agreed a deal this March for its Global Infrastructure Fund IV to acquire half of the Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGT), a fossil gas pipeline stretching from the Canadian border across New England in the United States to Maine and Massachusetts.

When it began operations in 1999, the pipeline helped shift New England’s power generation away from coal and oil, but it has also created a stronger dependency on fossil gas, leaving citizens vulnerable to price spikes. The region is now planning to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy sources.

Comment: To keep its profits, Big Oil stole our future

The PNGT was not the first fossil fuel infrastructure the BlackRock team behind the Global Infrastructure Fund had snapped up. In a written testimony submitted this March to the State of New Hampshire, a senior executive listed a dozen oil and gas pipelines backed by earlier rounds of the fund. They included one operated by ADNOC, the UAE state-owned oil company whose CEO is Sultan Al-Jaber, COP28 president and chair of ALTÉRRA’s board.

Responding to Climate Home’s findings on where ALTÉRRA’s money is going, Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based think-tank Power Shift Africa, said it is “extremely concerning to see a fund hailed by a COP president as a solution to the climate crisis investing in fossil fuels”.

“This needs to be a wake-up call to the world that these funds created by COP hosts are little more than PR stunts designed to greenwash the activities of fossil fuel-producing nations,” he added.

Oil-backed carbon capture

BlackRock does not disclose the infrastructure fund’s complete portfolio, but it has invested another $550 million in Stratos, the world’s biggest direct air capture (DAC) project being developed in a joint venture with oil giant Occidental. The plant under construction in Texas promises to suck as much as 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually and bury it underground.

Its proponents see DAC as a key technology to balance out emissions in the race to achieve net zero by 2050, although so far it remains expensive and largely unproven at scale. Stratos won a grant from the US government to fast-track the construction of the facility, and it has struck deals to sell carbon offsets generated in future from the plant with corporate giants like Amazon.

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When the DAC partnership was announced last November, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Stratos “represents an incredible investment opportunity for BlackRock’s clients… and underscores the critical role of American energy companies in climate technology innovation”.

But Stratos’ critics have questioned Occidental’s motivations and dismissed its DAC investments as a greenwashing ploy to keep pumping oil and slow down the transition away from fossil fuels.

“We believe that our direct capture technology is going to be the technology that helps to preserve our industry over time,” Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s chief executive, told the CERAWeek energy industry conference last year. “This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it’s going to be very much needed.”

Call for safeguards

While BlackRock’s infrastructure fund deploys its cash largely in the Global North, ALTÉRRA’s promised investments in developing countries are still taking shape.

Brookfield in June launched a new “Catalytic Transition Fund” backed by ALTÉRRA with a $1-billion commitment. The fund’s stated focus is “directing capital into clean energy and transition assets in emerging economies”.

Climate Home asked ALTÉRRA if it had adopted any exclusion policies that would, for example, rule out investment in certain types of fossil fuels.

The UAE fund did not respond to the question, but a spokesperson said its investment approach is aligned with the goal “of accelerating the climate transition, with a focus on clean energy, industry decarbonization, sustainable living, and climate technologies”.

Climate activists protest against fossil fuels during COP28 in Dubai in December 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya

350.org’s Sieber called on Al-Jaber – who was widely criticised by green groups for his dual role as president of COP28 and head of a fossil fuel corporation – to “act swiftly to enforce stringent safeguards” for ALTÉRRA’s investments.

“The UAE is on the brink of losing the little credibility it still has left in addressing the urgency of the climate emergency,” Sieber added. “The world, especially communities who are being hit the hardest by climate impacts every day, cannot afford to have one more cent invested in fossil fuels.”

The key question now is whether Azerbaijan – the host of COP29 and itself a substantial producer and exporter of oil and gas – will do things differently. Last week, it announced a new voluntary fund that it said will invest at least $1 billion for emissions reduction projects in developing countries. Baku is hoping to secure contributions for it from fossil-fuel producing nations and companies.

Power Shift Africa’s Adow said developing countries need state-backed climate finance from rich nations, negotiated through the UN climate process, and “not just cooked up in voluntary schemes”. That funding “can be used where the need is greatest, not just where it might make most money for some private profit-seeking businesses,” he added.

(Reporting by Matteo Civillini; fact-checking by Sebastián Rodríguez; editing by Megan Rowling and Sebastián Rodríguez)

The post UAE’s ALTÉRRA invests in fund backing fossil gas despite “climate solutions” pledge appeared first on Climate Home News.

In the Danish port city, as dozens of ministers fired the starting gun on the annual climate diplomacy race, the focus was on putting December’s landmark Cop28 decision into practice. In Dubai, governments agreed for the first time to start shifting away from fossil fuels. But officials are now contemplating how to make that work in the real world – and, crucially, who will pay for it.

Meanwhile, in oil and gas-rich Texas, top fossil fuel executives took to the stage at the energy industry conference CERAWeek, where they cast doubt on the transition away from fossil fuels agreed at Cop28, with Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser calling it a “fantasy”.

In the courts, Republican-led US states sued the Biden administration over its recent decision to pause new approvals for fossil gas exports.

Energy transition crossroads

For climate policy observers, these opposing forces are not entirely surprising.

Romain Ioualalen, global policy manager at campaign group Oil Change International, said the Cop28 decision puts the fossil fuel industry at a crossroads: either it pours more investment into renewable energy, or it doubles down on oil, gas and coal in a bid to undermine the green shift as much as possible.

“It seems to have chosen the latter – and unless governments immediately intervene to end fossil fuel expansion, people and planet will pay the price,” he added.

Pushing for faster adoption of clean energy certainly appears to be the intention on the international climate policy stage, where the political machinery is clanking back into gear after what Danish climate minister Dan Jørgensen dubbed “historic progress” in Dubai.

“Important decisions have been made on the action,” he told the start of the Danish summit. “Now, how do we pay for it?”

Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, delivers remarks at the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, flanked by Cop29 incoming president Mukhtar Babayev. REUTERS/Ali Withers

The question of finding money for the energy transition in developing countries will be front and centre this year as countries need to agree on a “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) for climate finance at Cop29 in November, which will kick in from next year.

The battle lines are already drawn: developing nations want their richer counterparts to stump up the highest amount of cash with the fewest strings attached. Developed countries want other governments, including China and fossil fuel-rich Gulf nations, to join the list of donors.

The size of the money pot – and the conditions to tap into it – will be particularly important for emerging economies. They want help to finance the costly emission-slashing measures they are being asked to take.

For Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s incoming Cop29 president, the negotiations on the new finance goal represent an opportunity to rebuild trust. Unlocking more funds, he told fellow ministers in Denmark, “will empower all parties to raise the ambition” of their upcoming climate plans.

Cop Troika urges “high-ambition” NDCs

The updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that all countries have been asked to submit by early 2025 was the other main talking point in Denmark on Thursday and Friday.

The so-called ‘Troika’ of the hosts of Cop28 (UAE), Cop29 (Azerbaijan) and Cop30 (Brazil) has tasked itself with building momentum and prompting countries to get moving.

On the eve of the Danish summit, the Cop presidencies sent a letter to all parties calling for “early submissions of high ambition NDCs that decisively take forward the UAE Consensus [the agreement struck in Dubai]”.

UN’s climate body faces “severe financial challenges” which put work at risk

The Troika “will aim to raise and reframe ambition for the development process” of the national climate action blueprints, pushing for more support, resources and finance, it added.

But the missive did not go down well with developed countries – and, above all, with the United States.

Its deputy special envoy for climate Sue Biniaz said she was “quite surprised” at the Troika’s suggestion that this year’s “focus on NDCs should be all about support” and that the Cop hosts defined a “high ambition NDC” for developed countries as one that includes finance for developing countries. Using that kind of wording could be “highly prejudicial” to climate finance negotiations, she warned.

Do as I say, not as I do

In the letter, the Cop host governments also pledged to demonstrate their own commitment by submitting NDCs that are aligned with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

That announcement raised some eyebrows. The UAE and Brazil have some of the world’s biggest plans to expand fossil fuel production between now and 2050, while Azerbaijan’s economy primarily relies on fossil fuel extraction and it is poised to hike gas exports.

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Those intentions clash with what the International Energy Agency (IEA) says is required to remain on a 1.5C trajectory: fossil fuel demand needs to fall 80% by 2050, meaning no new upstream oil and gas projects are needed, as of now.

Harjeet Singh of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said that discrepancy “raises serious questions about the alignment between [the Troika’s] words and their actions”.

“These countries must disentangle themselves from fossil fuel interests and lead climate action by example, pressuring wealthier nations that continue to shirk their historic and moral responsibilities,” he added.

Fossil fuel reality check

The rhetoric coming from the fossil fuel industry assembled at Houston’s CERAWeek suggests strong pressure will be needed.

Saudi Aramco CEO Nasser called for more, not less, investment in oil and gas, as he claimed that the current energy transition strategy is “visibly failing on most fronts”.

President and CEO, Amin Nasser, asserts at #CERAWeek 2024 that energy consumers around the world need lower-carbon energy with minimal disruptions to their daily lives and calls for a new, multi-source, multi-speed, and multi-dimensional road to a realistic transition#aramco pic.twitter.com/OEkQvuK9HD

— aramco (@aramco) March 19, 2024

Meg O’Neill, chief executive of Australian oil and gas firm Woodside Energy, said the shift to clean energy cannot “happen at an unrealistic pace”. The bosses of oil giants Shell, ExxonMobil and Petrobras echoed similar views.

One fossil fuel executive who is equally at home in industry talking shops and climate diplomacy circles is Cop28 president Sultan Al Jaber.

On Tuesday, he told attendees at the oil and gas conference in the US that “there is just no avoiding that the energy transition will take time”.

Two days later, over in Denmark, he emphasised that “governments and all relevant parties” have to be honest about what moving away from fossil fuels will involve.

“We can’t misguide or mislead anyone anymore,” he said, sending out a message that could apply on both sides of the Helsingør-Houston divide. “We must confront the facts very early. Those who are in this room. It is our job, our duty to do that.”

The post Climate leaders, oil bosses pitch alternate energy-transition realities appeared first on Climate Home News.

Blue Carbon plans to take over forested areas the size of the United Kingdom and sell carbon credits from their conservation under a mechanism established by the UN. The UAE firm, chaired by a member of Dubai’s royal family, has been on a deal-making spree with African governments to make that happen.

The 58-year-old Italian is no forestry expert, but – he says – he was tapped by the company right after its launch a year ago because of his decades-long technology experience. In Dubai, Landi is known as the owner of a cybersecurity firm devising fully encrypted phones.

In his native country, Landi is a wanted man. He was convicted in two separate trials for a bankruptcy fraud that sank one of Italy’s largest telecommunications companies and left over 2,200 people without a job nearly 15 years ago.

Landi’s advisory role in Blue Carbon is likely to fuel concerns over the integrity of a company bidding to become a large player in a sector already plagued by environmental and social risks.

Blue Carbon did not respond to emailed questions. After Climate Home contacted the company, Landi emailed the reporter in a personal capacity and agreed to a video call. He rejected the legitimacy of the court judgments against him, alleging that Italian judges ruling over his case were corrupt.

Bankruptcy fraud

Samuele Landi was the founder and chief executive of Eutelia, an Italian company providing landline and internet services to millions of users across the country in the early 2000s.

The firm, which had ballooned in size through acquisitions, seemed set on a meteoric rise. But in 2008 cracks started to appear. Drowning in debt, Eutelia asked the government to place most of its workers in a state-funded job retention scheme while trying to restructure its activities.

But at the same time, according to court records, Samuele Landi and other senior executives illicitly moved funds worth dozens of millions of euros outside of Eutelia and into shell companies mainly based outside of Italy.

Shades of green hydrogen: EU demand set to transform Namibia

Eutelia went bankrupt. By the time Italian police moved in to arrest Landi in mid-2010, he had relocated to Dubai. At the time Italy had no extradition treaty with the UAE. Landi told Climate Home News he did not move to Dubai out of fear of being arrested but because he was looking for more freedom.

Landi never returned to Italy. Two separate trials against him and other executives went ahead in his absence. In one Samuele Landi was handed an 8-year prison sentence on bankruptcy fraud charges in 2020. In a second one, stemming from the bankruptcy of a company linked to Eutelia, the court of appeal in Rome sentenced him to 6 years and six months in prison at the end of October.

Landi said he had referred the first case to the European Court of Human Rights, claiming it was an unfair trial. He said he is going to appeal against the second sentence to the Italian Supreme Court. “There is no evidence. I did not steal one single euro”, he told Climate Home.

Liberian diplomat

While his legal troubles rumbled on in Italy, Landi started a new life in Dubai. He set up a cybersecurity company and became a diplomat, after being appointed as consul general in the UAE for the African state of Liberia.

Landi told Climate Home he “developed the diplomatic relations between the Liberian and the UAE governments”, which resulted in the construction of roads, hospitals and sports centers in the African nation over the last few years.

It is through this role that he first came in contact with people from Blue Carbon. Landi said he accompanied a delegation from Liberia to a meeting with Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, a member of the Dubai royal family and chairman of Blue Carbon. “When they formed the company a year ago they asked me to be their advisor”, Landi said. “I help them with information technology. Sometimes they call me to make evaluations on IT solutions.”

A screenshot from the Blue Carbon website

Liberia is one of the African countries that have signed a raft of memorandums of understanding with Blue Carbon in the run-up to Cop28, alongside the governments of Kenya, Angola, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania. Landi said he was not directly involved in the negotiations between Blue Carbon and Liberia.

Blue Carbon’s African scramble

The deals, which are not yet definitive, could see the UAE firm gain control over more than 30 million hectares of forests across the countries. In Zimbabwe alone, it is set to secure rights over a fifth of its total landmass.

Blue Carbon plans to set up forestry protection schemes, produce carbon offsets on a never-seen-before scale and sell them to polluting governments and companies.

The firm is looking to operate under a new mechanism established by Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which is set to transform carbon markets. Blue Carbon wants to trade a specific type of credit, internationally transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs), that can be used by governments to achieve emission reduction goals set out in their nationally determined contributions.

 

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A post shared by Blue Carbon LLC (@bluecarbondxb)

Blue Carbon’s foray into Africa has prompted numerous concerns.

Alexandra Benjamin, forest governance campaigner at Fern, calls Blue Carbon’s plans “a new scramble for Africa”.  “These deals, mostly struck under a veil of secrecy, aren’t just bad news for the climate, but for the lives and livelihoods of rural African communities, whose rights are threatened by them”, she added.

Civil society and indigenous groups fear communities will be forced to make way for the projects, losing control over land that constitutes their primary livelihoods. A number of forest protection offsetting projects – unrelated to Blue Carbon – have been suspended recently following allegations of abuse and forced evictions.

Exposed: carbon offsets linked to high forest loss still on sale

The second concern is that little money would actually end up in the hands of African governments and local communities, contrary to what the mechanism is set up to achieve.

Finally, there are worries that the unprecedented volume of credits created could end up greenwashing oil and gas operations without providing any meaningful emission reductions. Forestry offsetting programs have been hotly debated after a series of articles and scientific studies cast doubts over their climate integrity.

COP28 plans

Blue Carbon has said the deals will bring “vital environmental impacts” and “a transformative wave of economic opportunities” for the African countries signing on. Sheik Dalmook Al Maktoum told the Zimbabwean government the programme could bring $1.5 billion of climate finance into the country.

“Beyond the immediate goal of carbon emissions reduction, the heart of these carbon projects pulsates with the intent to bring about tangible improvements at the grassroots level,” the company added when announcing the agreement in Harare.

The company has indicated that more details about its carbon credit plans will be revealed at Cop28 in Dubai. It told CNN that it would present its deals at the climate summit as a “blueprint” for carbon trading.

Landi said he has no intention to take part in Cop28. Nearly a year ago he moved to a barge moored in the international waters off the Arabian coast with the goal to set up a so-called decentralized autonomous organisation.

“The idea is to create a place where people can stay without being subjected to the matrix,” he told Climate Home. “No one can say which kind of insects or fake meat you have to eat, which kind of injections you have to get. A libertarian state is very important.”

The post Meet the Italian fugitive advising Emirati start-up Blue Carbon appeared first on Climate Home News.

The summit was expected to lay down groundwork ahead of the Cop28 in Dubai. But it unearthed deep divisions between governments over some of the key issues at stake, piling pressure on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to find a consensus around its vision for the climate summit in November.

Phasing down unabated fossil fuels by mid-century and tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 are among the pillars of the plan outlined by Cop28 chief Sultan al Jaber.

Alden Meyer from climate think tank E3G said the Cop28 presidency “now has an even clearer sense of the fault lines among major countries” in reaching the outcome it is seeking for the climate summit and “must intensify its discussions with ministers and leaders in the weeks ahead”.

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A Cop28 spokesperson told Climate Home News that “tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 is a critical enabler of keeping the goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach”.

“The COP28 Presidency will continue to call on all parties to make a clear commitment to this ambitious but achievable target at every opportunity in the lead up to COP28”, they added.

G20 ministers could not strike a deal after days of intense discussions, during which some fossil-fuel-producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, opposed those targets, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Disagreements also resulted in the failure to produce a joint text at the end of the meeting. Instead, officials issued an outcome statement and a chair’s summary of the debate.

Fossil fuel divisions

The document said some nations emphasized the “importance of making efforts towards phase down of unabated fossil fuels”, while others focused on the use of technologies to capture greenhouse gas emissions.

At the root of the divisions – the summary says – is the view that “fossil fuels currently continue to play a significant role in the global energy mix, eradication of energy poverty, and in meeting the growing energy demand”.

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This is understood to reflect the position of countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia, which had already blocked the inclusion of similar language at Cop27 last year.

At this year’s climate summit, the EU will push again for a global pledge to phase out unabated fossil fuels “well ahead of 2050” with support expected from a range of small island states and Latin American nations.

‘Disappointing’ renewables language

Further fault lines emerged over a pledge to triple renewable energy production by 2030. The summary said countries noted that there is a “need to scale up the deployment of renewable energy at an accelerated pace”. But the goal of tripling capacity within the next seven years was only mentioned in the context of “voluntary contributions”.

Major fossil fuel producers Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, South Africa and Indonesia have opposed this language, Reuters reported.

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Dave Jones, global insights lead at Ember, told Climate Home News the failure of the G20 to get behind this commitment is disappointing. “It shows that we will need to fight a lot harder than perhaps we thought to get these agreed at Cop28”, he said.

The G20 member countries together account for over three-quarters of global emissions and gross domestic product, and a cumulative effort by the group to decarbonise is crucial in the global fight against climate change.

The article was updated after publication to include a statement from the Cop28 team

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Speaking after a meeting with civil society, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to “progressively phase [fossil fuels] out, moving to leave oil, gas and coal in the ground where they belong”, and boost investment in renewable energy.

“We are hurtling towards disaster, eyes wide open,” he said, “with far too many willing to bet it all on wishful thinking, unproven technologies and silver bullet solutions”.

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In response to Guterres’ statement, a Cop28 spokesperson told Climate Home News the presidency “has been explicit about the need for a rapid, well managed and just energy transition”. They added that “we need to find a way to hold back emissions, not progress” and that the world cannot be unplugged from the energy system of today overnight.

Guterres’ statements take aim at countries calling for the phase out of fossil fuel emissions rather than the fuels themselves and for the large-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

Al Jaber’s signals

This includes Cop28’s host, the United Arab Emirates. In an agenda-setting speech last month, the climate summit’s president-designate Sultan Al Jaber backed a “phase out of fossil fuel emissions”.

His words were interpreted as leaving a loophole for continuing to use such fuels if their emissions are kept out of the atmosphere with CCS.

Several oil-producing countries and fossil fuel companies are betting heavily on CCS, but the technology remains expensive and unproven at large scale.

According to the IPCC’s scientists, stopping a tonne of carbon dioxide with CCUS costs between $50 and $200. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables usually saves money.

Cop28 battle lines

At the Bonn climate talks last week, Al Jaber made stronger remarks, saying the “phasedown of fossil fuels is inevitable”. But he stopped short of calling for a “phase out” or indicating the pace at which that the phase down needs to happen.

A broad coalition of nations has been pushing for an agreement to “phase out fossil fuels” at Cop28 after failing to reach that at last year’s summit in Egypt.

China is quick to combat social media’s climate lies – but not when they are about their critics

Asked if he supported a fossil fuel phase-out yesterday, the Egyptian Cop27 presidency’s ambassador Wael Aboulmagd told Climate Home that “there is no one size fits all” and that wealthy fossil fuel producers like Norway shouldn’t be treated like poorer producers like Guyana.

Several Western lawmakers and campaigners have accused the Cop host of being soft on fossil fuels, given Al Jaber’s role as the head of Adnoc, the UAE’s national oil company, which has plans to ramp up its oil extraction capacity.

Although climate talks are part of the UN, the Cop president is chosen by the host country and Guterres has no say on who they choose.

‘Immoral’ industry commitment

Guterres said the climate agenda is being “undermined”, with countries backtracking “at a time when we should be accelerating action”. He previously urged countries in the G20 to significantly bring forward their net zero targets – a call they have largely ignored.

He has also hit out directly at the fossil fuel industry, which he described as “the polluted heart of the climate crisis”. He has urged companies to invest their record windfall from high oil and gas prices into renewable energies.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), oil and gas companies invested less than 5% of their spending on clean electricity and carbon capture. Guterres has called such a level of investment “immoral”.

The UN chief has said transition plans need to show a move towards clean energy. “Otherwise, they are just proposals to become more efficient planet-wreckers,” he added.

The article has been updated after publication to include a comment from the Cop28 team

The post UN head Guterres contradicts Cop28 host on fossil fuel phaseout appeared first on Climate Home News.

Purporting to be genuine people based in the UAE, scores of individual Twitter accounts publish similar positive content and defend the UAE in replies to posts by campaigners or journalists.

At least a hundred profiles engaged in such behaviour have been identified by Marc Owen Jones, a digital disinformation expert at the Hamad bin Khalifa University in Qatar.

Twitter suspended a handful of those accounts after Jones publicly exposed them last week. But many others remain active having now transitioned to different personas overnight.

Climate Home News has independently analysed the activities of some of the most active profiles. They were all created in February 2022, using fake profile pictures and unlikely biographies, and display a suspicious pattern of activities.

‘Coordinated network’

When taken together, they appear to be engaged in an orchestrated attempt to promote the UAE.

“This is definitely organised”, Marc Owen Jones told Climate Home News. ” The accounts are part of a coordinated network, using the same modus operandi.”

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He says the accounts appear to carry out a strategic communication campaign promoting the Cop28, among other UAE policy matters.

“A lot of their efforts go towards damage limitation. Whenever there is negative content about Cop28, they swing into action to try and balance the narrative, muddy the waters,” he added.

1/There is a large, multilingual astroturfing effort around #Cop28 on Twitter right now involving at least 100 fake accounts. The accounts in question are promoting UAE foreign policy, bashing UAE's enemies, and burnishing the UAE's environmental record #deception #greenwashing pic.twitter.com/84uz5X8W81

— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) June 2, 2023

Proving who is behind these accounts is difficult and neither Jones or Climate Home News has evidence the Cop28 team or any UAE government agency is running them.

A Cop28 UAE spokesperson told Climate Home News that such engagement is “unacceptable” and goes against their commitment to authenticity and transparency.

“The Cop28 team is already aware of fake accounts and bots coordinating in manipulation on the platform and violating Twitter’s manipulation and spam policy,” they added. “We have written to Twitter directly requesting assistance to take immediate action to stop this activity and to remove all fake accounts and bots.”

Comment: Climate movement must switch on to UAE threat

But Marc Owen Jones believes that, given the scale and content type, the “most likely explanation” is that this operation is run by a PR firm working for an entity in the UAE.

Identical messages

The tweets are generally responses or quote-tweets to tweets by the UAE government. But some are exactly the same as the UAE government’s tweets.

Jones said whoever was running these accounts were either copying the government’s language or “the same social media company manages the accounts of government officials and the fake accounts.”

One example is ‘Viyan Mahmud’. Like most of the accounts, it was created in February 2022.

“Mahmud” purported to be a human rights advocate in the UAE. As its profile picture, it displayed a computer-generated image with the line ‘this person does not exist” still emblazoned on top.

Initially its feed alternated propaganda messages about the UAE with pictures of luxury handbags and collectible sneakers.

Amplifying the government message

But on March 27th ‘Viyan Mahmud’ wrote: “We welcome the activation of the Transitional Committee on the #LossAndDamage Fund and funding arrangements…”. The same tweet and the same picture had been posted 30 minutes earlier by the official Cop28 account.

The pattern repeated itself at the beginning of May when the UAE’s Cop28 team unveiled its agenda at the Petersberg Climate Summit. Following a bilateral meeting with world leaders, the official account of UAE’s Climate Minister Mariam Almheiri published the following tweet:

During the Global Response to Climate Impacts session, on the sidelines of #PetersbergClimateDialogue I discussed the significance of the Global Goal on Adaptation outcome at #COP28 & how it can support national policy measures to enhance adaptive capacity & reduce vulnerability. pic.twitter.com/9SchVA3wMi

— Mariam Almheiri | مريم المهيري (@mariammalmheiri) May 3, 2023

Afterward, ‘Viyan Mahmud’ posted the same picture of Almheiri and US Special Envoy John Kerry saying “shared my views on the crucial role of Global Goal on Adaptation at COP28…”. The message is remarkably similar to Almheiri’s and, like that one, it appears to be conveying the Climate Minister’s personal thoughts.

The tweet was originally published when the account was still named ‘Viyan Mahmud’. It has since been rebranded into ‘Amina Mahi’, the name that appears on this screenshot.

After being exposed by Dr. Jones, the ‘Viyan Mahmud’ account has undergone a complete makeover.

It is now called ‘Amina Mahi’ and claims to be a tech enthusiast. The profile picture has been changed to a portrait photo of the Indian TikToker Arishfa Khan. It continues to share professionally-crafted pro-UAE content.

Climate Home News has seen several more examples of fake Twitter profiles acting in unison to rebut criticism.

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Below the post of a Financial Times article headlined ‘Is Cop28 destined to be a flop?’, a user then named ‘Hannah Yousef’ urged others to give the UAE a chance and “work together towards a sustainable future”.

When someone branded her comment as “attempted greenwashing”, the fake profile shot back: “Excuse me!!! Instead of attacking the country’s host, fostering cooperation and giving leaders like Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber a chance to make a positive impact is crucial…”, she wrote.

‘Hannah Yousef’ claimed to be a humanitarian aid advocate from Syria based in the UAE. After being exposed by Marc Owen Jones, the profile has now turned into ‘Avery Cohen’.

Rebutting criticism

The Cop28 hosts have repeatedly come under criticism from climate campaigners since the start of the year.

First, questions were raised over the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber, an oil executive, as the climate summit’s head. The invitation to Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad brought another outpouring of condemnation from human rights groups and western governments.

Finally, the UAE’s promotion of phasing out “fossil fuel emissions” rather than fossil fuels was labelled an attempt to use the promise of carbon capture and storage technology to prolong the country’s oil exports.

The Cop28 hosts have been previously accused of trying to “control the narrative” online. Last week the Guardian said members of the Cop28 president’s team edited Wikipedia pages that highlighted Sultan Al Jaber’s role as an oil executive.

Note: The headline was amended after publication on 6th June 2023. 

The post Fake social media profiles wage “organised” propaganda campaign on Cop28 appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a speech setting out his agenda for the talks in Dubai in December, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) climate envoy Sultan Al-Jaber told a gathering of climate ministers in Berlin: “In a pragmatic, just and well-managed energy transition, we must be laser focused on phasing out fossil fuel emissions while phasing and scaling up viable, affordable zero-carbon alternatives.”

A broad coalition of nations have been pushing for an agreement to “phase out fossil fuels” at Cop28, so the addition of the word “emissions” is likely to be seen as a loophole for continuing to use such fuels if their emissions are kept out of the atmosphere with CCS.

#Info: starting at +/- 10.30 am CEST you can follow the opening session of the 14th Petersberg Climate Dialogue #Petersberg2023 and remarks by Foreign Minister @ABaerbock and designated #COP28 president & co-host Dr. Sultan Al Jaber here live. https://t.co/nLiyfUt4Dx

— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) May 2, 2023

Cops and fossil fuels

Although the burning of fossil fuels is the key driver of climate change, they were for decades not mentioned in joint agreements put out by governments at international climate talks.

But at Cop26 in the UK in 2021, countries agreed to “phase down” the most polluting fossil fuel coal, after India and China objected to the term “phase out”.

At Cop27 in Egypt the next year, a broad coalition of nations pushed for a commitment to “phase out” fossil fuels.

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But Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia opposed that language and the host Egypt did not include it in the final text.

While they accepted that agreement, the governments of countries like Germany, Chile and Tuvalu said they were dissapointed.

UAE strikes balance

In February, UAE environment minister Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri told the Munich Security Conference that the oil and gas sector should decarbonise and “then phase out oil and gas in a just way”. But she also said “we need the oil and gas sector to be with us”.

As well as calling for the targeting of “fossil fuel emissions”, Al Jaber today called for “smart government regulation to…make carbon capture commercially viable”.

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Al Jaber leads the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and, in November 2021, called for increased global investment in oil and gas.

“The future is clean but it is not here yet. We must make progress with pragmatism,” he told an Abu Dhabi oil conference.

International divisions

A focus on “fossil fuel emissions” rather than fossil fuels is likely to anger some nations. Last week, one European official told Climate Home that the “strongest voices” in favour of CCS “are currently coming from fossil exporting countries”.

The official said that CCS “will play a key role” in some sectors that are hard to clean up. “But for now, it’s an expensive option, a luxury technology”, they said, and renewables and energy efficiency “are the most affordable and readily available mitigation technologies”.

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The US, which is the world’s biggest oil and gas producer, takes a different stance. In a recent interview with Foreign Policy magazine, the US’s climate envoy John Kerry spoke about the damage fossil fuels cause, then corrected himself.

“Unabated fossil fuels,” he said. “Let me be clear on this. Unabated is a critical component of this. If you can capture 100% and do something useful with this and build the infrastructure and its cost-competitive, go for it!”

Other major oil and gas producers, such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, have also talked up CCS. Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexey Overchuk told a recent World Bank meeting that carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) was “of utmost importance to the green agenda” while a Saudi minister said it had “great potential to serve the climate mitigation agenda”.

The debate

CCS remains expensive and unproven at large scale.

According to the IPCC’s scientists, stopping a tonne of carbon dioxide with CCUS costs between $50 and $200. Replacing fossil fuels with renewables usually saves money.

There are currently only 35 commercial facilities applying CCUS with a total annual capture capacity of 45 Mt CO2, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Most are in North America and in the gas processing industry.

Many climate campaigners have called it a “distraction” that gives fossil fuel companies a licence to keep extracting more climate-harming coal, oil and gas.

But the IEA’s head Fatih Birol disagrees, calling it “critical for ensuring our transitions to clean energy are secure and sustainable”.

The post Cop28 head backs fossil phase-out with carbon capture caveat appeared first on Climate Home News.

Just days after Amer was offered the new job, a close friend working as a contractor for an oil and gas company died after getting lost in the desert. Other workers told Amer it was work-related, but officially, the man’s death was listed as natural causes.

Despite knowing the circumstances of his friend’s death, Amer still celebrated his new contract with the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC), a UAE-based engineering and procurement company, by ordering sweets for his family back home in Lahore, Pakistan. It was a better paid job, Amer said, and “all work is risky here.”

UAE and its neighbor, Qatar, are in the midst of a major build out of infrastructure to increase gas production and exports, encouraged in part by Europe’s recent demand for alternatives to Russian gas. They will rely on migrant labour to get it done.

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But stories like Amer’s friend’s are not uncommon. In 2022, a coalition of non-government organizations, Vital Signs, estimated that 10,000 South Asian migrant workers die each year in the Gulf region, and as many as half are reported as only “cardiac arrests” or “natural causes,” a suspiciously high percentage that potentially obscures how many of these deaths were work-related.

Industry observers and workers note that the UAE’s oil and gas sector has better safety protocols than other industries in the country, but they also point to a lack of transparency and potential conflict of interests in how work-related injuries or accidents get reported.

A Climate Home News investigation found that, while migrant workers will build a major gas expansion in the UAE to supply Europe with energy alternatives, these workers face harsh conditions and a lack of transparency when risk turns deadly.

Activists warn that the UAE’s gas plans could clash with the country’s role as president in the next round of UN climate negotiations, Cop28. The president of the upcoming Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

The International Energy Agency has said that limiting global warming to the Paris Accord target of 1.5C requires no new development of oil and gas fields.

Migrant workers for an ADNOC oil and gas project chatting on the street in Abu Dabhi, UAE. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

Gas expansion

As Europe searched for quick replacements for Russian gas last year, several countries turned to UAE to cover their needs, including France, Germany and Austria. Germany’s agreement with Adnoc covers at least two years. The European country has also signed a 15-year contract with Qatar and recently opened two floating import terminals.

Niklas Höhne, a climate policy expert and co-founder of NewClimate Institute, says the German government is consiering building up to 13 import terminals.

“It is a huge overcapacity if it is built,” says Höhne, adding gas deliveries from existing pipelines from Norway would be more efficient.

UAE’s state-owned energy company, Adnoc, is boosting its gas production to stop importing gas from Qatar and expand its own exports.

Qatar already exports more liquified natural gas (LNG) than any other country in the world. It is now expanding gas production in the offshore North Field, with plans to increase exports by nearly 60% by 2027. Both countries’ energy ministers have suggested that they will keep producing gas for several decades.

The expansion is already underway in the UAE. Amer’s new company has been hired by Adnoc to develop a new $548 million pipeline to expand gas production in the Lower Zakum field in the shallow waters offshore of Abu Dhabi.

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The country has also revived plans for a LNG export terminal in Fujairah, outside the Strait of Hormuz choke point, to ship gas to both Asia and Europe, and is seeking to speed up construction. The terminal would more than double UAE’s current export capacity.

At least two leading contracting groups have shown interest in developing the project, with bids likely to come in the next months, energy news outlet Upstream reported.

These projects will be built by the country’s migrant workforce. Almost 8 million people, mainly from South Asian countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, work across all industries in the UAE, and represent 90% of the country’s total workforce, according to the United Nation’s International Labour Organization (ILO). Amer, for instance, is the main income earner of his family of five back home in Pakistan.

An Adnoc worker walking by an oil and gas infrastructure project in Abu Dhabi. (Photo: anonymous based in the UAE)

There are no publicly shared figures on how many workers are currently employed in the UAE’s oil and gas sector, but 30% of the country’s GDP is directly based on the industry. Adnoc alone has approximately 55,000 direct employees, according to one 2016 report, not counting contractors and other third-party workers.

High risk in Lower Zakum

Amer’s friend went missing in the desert while working as a jeep driver on a pipeline construction project. He and his colleague were missing for two days.

By the time the vehicle was traced, he had died and his colleague was in critical condition, according to an Adnoc health & safety officer, who agreed to share limited information about the death because of fears of retribution. Adnoc did not make public a complete disclosure of the event.

The death was formally ruled a heart attack by Adnoc and other government officials, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.

“In case of serious accidents or deaths, it becomes a police case and a medical expert will conduct a postmortem [examination],” the health and safety officer said. “If it is deduced a heart attack or a natural death, then companies don’t have to pay families.”

Nations seek compromise on fossil fuel phase-out ahead of Cop28

The source said that government officials do influence the death reports that medical experts produce.

“Companies have to report accidents to government authorities such as the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health Center (Oshad). But if you are the government authority, like Adnoc, you will usually conduct investigations yourself,” says the health officer.

“Even when police and doctors are involved to assess a situation, it is hard to really assure there is no conflict of interest.”

A spokeperson for Adnoc told Climate Home News the “health and safety” of its workforce is a top priority, but offered no comment on the specific event or the potential conflict of interests.

“Any work-related incident is thoroughly investigated, and learnings are shared internally. We include contractor activities in all our safety approaches and data, and we value all of the people that work for ADNOC,” the spokesperson added.

Activists have previously called out the lack of transparency around the high rate of unexplained heart attack-related or natural deaths of young migrant workers across the Gulf.

“There is clearly a problem with the manner in which deaths are investigated and certified in the UAE and the Gulf more broadly,” says Nicholas McGeehan, founding co-director of Fair/Square.

“This is particularly true when the deaths involve non-nationals and the lower down the social strata you go, the more likely it is that a person’s death won’t be investigated even in cases where employer negligence is suspected,” McGeehan added.

Migrant workers chatting outside an oil and gas project in Abu Dhabi. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

The main risks on oil and gas infrastructure projects like Lower Zakum are fires, equipment-related injuries, falling overboard, and inhaling poisonous gas, according to an Adnoc engineer who has worked on offshore expansion projects and who also wished to remain anonymous over similar concerns.

While Adnoc’s risk assessment controls are generally effective, the engineer said, when there are accidents, they rarely get reported.

“The main issue is that the bureaucracy sweeps these things under the rug, especially if the victim is a low-skilled person,” he said. “If there was more transparency and accountability, even the rare accidents will be taken seriously because of negative public perceptions,”

Cop28 host UAE tried to weaken global shipping’s climate ambition

The wages are also not proportionate to the high risks of the work that low-skilled migrant workers do.

“Engineers will get paid okay but low skilled workers really don’t,” the engineer said. “It might be better than other industries but it is still extremely exploitative given the intense work that is done.” A low skilled contractor will typically get paid around US$300 per month, according to several workers spoken to about their wages.

Rising temperatures could make the job even more challenging for workers. A 2015 MIT study estimated that, under a very high emissions scenario, temperatures in Gulf nations may cross the limit of survivability for humans in the second half of the century.

Already, the Gulf is one of the regions with the hottest weather anywhere on Earth according to a 2020 study published in the journal Science Advances.

A risky — but attractive — job

Mohammed Amer says that he’s well aware that the work in oil and gas is a “dangerous environment.” He was willing to take the job in the hope for better pay.

“I had been suffering for four years working in the heat and not getting anything in return. I moved to this work because even if I am still suffering, at least I will get something in return,” says Amer. “All work is risky here.”

A worker at an oil and gas project in Abu Dhabi leaving the site. (Photo: anonymous based in UAE)

The Adnoc health and safety officer says that the UAE’s oil and gas sector offers relatively better living standards to migrant workers, but more risk.

“Accidents can be catastrophic if they occur. This might be why they also offer relatively better living conditions for workers,” the officer said. “Whatever company is working on an Adnoc project, for example, must provide accommodation, food, and other basic facilities of a certain standard that are far superior to what is being offered elsewhere in the UAE.”

But workers who are directly employed with large companies are the primary beneficiaries of these living conditions. Large, well-established firms like NPCC and Adnoc have to answer to a range of stakeholders that include shareholders and the government. Third-party companies are rarely held to the same standards. Most companies also hire third party contractors for construction and engineering.

“The high rate of deaths among the migrant workers who migrate to major destination countries such as the Gulf after passing rigorous medical examinations in Nepal has been a sign of considerable concern,” Anurag Devkota, a human rights lawyer, specialising in labour migration in Nepal.

“It is quite concerning that the majority of causes of death are either unknown or are being reported without a full postmortem. These deaths can be prevented with greater effort from both employers and the government of the country of destination.”

Varun Jangir, a migrant oil rig worker at gas fields and off-shore rigs in the UAE has been working for a third-party contractor for about a decade. His monthly salary is AED1700 ($460) but he does experience wage delays regularly.

“I have never been hired by the company I am working for directly, they always just rent us out from our agency,” he says. “I don’t know if working for big companies is better, I have never experienced it but I know that nobody cares if we are paid or not, or if we live or die, and our employer will never even get in trouble for our deaths.”

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According to four sources in the room, the UAE was one of around a dozen countries which argued against more ambitious climate targets at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) last week.

Their representative to the IMO Mohamed Khamis Saeed AlKaabi joined nations like China, India and Brazil in opposing a 2050 zero emissions target and pushing for the target to be to “aim for net zero, preferably by mid-century, and to phase-out emissions before the end of the century”. He also opposed setting interim targets for 2030 and 2040.

A spokesperson for the UAE’s Cop28 presidency told Climate Home that IMO negotiations were outside of their scope but “the Cop28 UAE presidency sees a substantial and important role for industries, including shipping, to deliver action to keep 1.5 alive”.

In a seeming rebuke to their negotiator’s oppostion to a 2030 target, the spokesperson added that the Cop28 presidency echoes the IPCC scientists’ finding that carbon emissions must fall 43% between 2019 and 2030.

A big emitter

The ships that carry goods and people around the world burn large amounts of dirty fuel. The industry is responsible for 3% of global emissions. If it was a nation, it would be the fifth most polluting in the world, ahead of Japan.

Like international air travel, international shipping is not mentioned in the Paris Agreement and is not covered by most countries’ climate plans.

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A broad group of countries, led by climate vulnerable Pacific nations, has called for the industry to set a zero emissions by 2050 target at its next marine environment protection committee meeting in July.

But a group, mainly made up of big emerging economies opposed this at the last meeting in December, arguing that clean fuels are technologically unproven and are likely to cost more and those costs will be passed on to consumers.

Leading the opposition

Last week, intersessional talks were held at the headquarters of the IMO, the UN’s shipping arm, on the banks of the river Thames in London. Journalists were unable to watch proceedings but campaigners and other observers were allowed in the room.

John Maggs, president of the Clean Shipping Coalition, was among them. He said the UAE repeatedly emphasised the “end of the century” part of their proposed net zero target. “It was ‘their baby'”, he said, “they took the floor early on to state this and when the languaage disappeared form the draft they took the floor to support it going back in.”

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Three other observers said the UAE was among the group opposing zero emissions by 2050 and pushing for a weaker target. One was Faig Abbasov, shipping lead at the Transport and Environment NGO, who added that the UAE also opposed adding new 2030 and 2040 targets.

Abbasov said the UAE’s stance was “baffling given the country hosts Cop28 later this year”. He added: “If the UAE does not align itself with this goal, including for shipping, then COP28 risks being an official “climate oilwashing” event.”

Aoife O’Leary, CEO of Opportunity Green, also watched proceedings. She told Climate Home: “It is alarming to witness the upcoming Cop President, UAE, being one of the leading voices for lower ambition at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings”.

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UAE command respect

Another observer, who did not want to be named, said that, while the UAE has “excellent potential” to bring climate leadership into the IMO, “there were no signs of that at [the intersessional talks last week], instead they were working against those calling for progress.”

O’Leary and the Clean Shipping Coalition both compiled lists of which countries opposed the net zero by 2050 target. Since there was no voting, they judged on comments and formal submissions, so the lists differ slightly. But both feature China, India, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

The Clean Shipping Coalition’s list of countries which voiced support for zero emissions by 2050 last week includes several Pacific island nations, most European governments, the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Japan and the Bahamas. Most also voiced support for 2030 and 2040 targets.

The post Cop28 host UAE tried to weaken global shipping’s climate ambition appeared first on Climate Home News.

Governments failed to agree on this wording at previous climate talks and this phrase is likely to divide nations at the Cop28 summit in Dubai in November.

The UAE’s environment minister Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri told the Munich Security Conference: “We need the oil and gas sector to be with us. We need to shift the way they are doing business and we need to decarbonise what they are doing. We need to then phase out oil and gas in a just way.”

A Cop battle line

At the Cop26 climate talks in 2021, all governments agreed to commit to a “phase down” of coal. This was the first time a fossil fuel had been mentioned in a Cop decision.

At the next year’s talks in Egypt, a broad coalition of nations including India, rich nations and vulnerable islands pushed for an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, which would include oil and gas as well as coal.

But a handful of oil and gas producers opposed that language, the hosts Egypt did not include it in the final text and the coalition pushing for it eventually decided not to block the agreement over the issue.

The battle is set to continue at Cop28. While hosts are supposed to be neutral, they have a lot of power over which requests from governments make it into the Cop draft decisions.

Breaking cover?

At Cop27, the UAE was quiet on the fossil fuel issue. The resistance to criticism of fossil fuels was led by Saudi Arabia whose lead negotiator Albara Tawfiq told the plenary that the UN climate convention “needs to address emissions and not the origins of the emissions”.

Saudi Arabia officially spoke on behalf of the Arab Group at the talks – a coalition of 22 nations across the Middle East and North Africa which includes the UAE. But the extent to which each member of the group supports the Saudi position is unclear.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told Climate Home in December that Cop28 “might force them to break cover”.

Cop president

The UAE’s hosting of this year’s climate talks has come under heavy criticism following the appointment as its boss of Sultan al-Jaber, the head of state oil giant Adnoc.

Campaigners said his appointment sent the wrong signal and that the fossil fuel industry was hijacking the world’s response to the global warming crisis.

UAE plans to have it both ways as Cop28 climate summit host

Responding to the criticism, minister Almheiri said al-Jaber had been placed in Adnoc to change the company and guide it throughout the energy transition.

“We’re always going to be an energy exporter, but the type of energy we export is changing already and will change in the future,” she said.

Experts around table

Sultan al-Jaber himself took to the stage at the Munich Security Conference on a panel discussion with US Climate envoy John Kerry.

The Cop28 boss said the UAE would focus on promoting an “inclusive” climate agenda, which does not exclude fossil fuel players.

“When you talk about energy transition please include the energy experts,” said al-Jaber. “Don’t think you are going to come up with solutions without the experts around the table.”

Al-Jaber was keen to highlight the UAE’s push for renewable energy happening under his watch. On top of his Cop28 and fossil fuel jobs, al-Jaber is the chairman of Masdar, the UAE’s renewable energy company.

Thanks to its abundance of sunshine, the UAE boasts some of the world’s cheapest solar power. The government expects to have installed more than 9GW of solar capacity by 2030, tripling current levels.

The UAE was the first country in the region to set a 2050 net zero goal. And at Cop27, it became the first to announce absolute emission cuts, instead of from a hypothetical business-as-usual baseline.

Pragmatism and balance

But, in an address sprinkled with repeated appeals for “pragmatism” and “balance”, Al-Jaber also reiterated the UAE’s resolve on the need for continued investment in oil and gas in the short term.

UAE’s Cop28 boss calls for “course correction” on climate change

“Transitions usually take time. Any successful transitional is built on a practical, not emotional roadmap,” he told the audience in Munich. “We need to adopt a diversified energy mix approach.”

Adnoc, the oil and gas company presided over by al-Jaber, plans to boost investment by $150 billion over the next five years. The funding will also speed up an increase in oil and gas production capacity.  

The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that new fossil fuel investments are incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

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“We already know that we are way off track,” Sultan al-Jaber told the World Government Summit in Dubai.

“The world is playing catch-up when it comes to holding global temperatures down to 1.5 degrees and the hard reality is that global emissions must fall 43% by 2030,” he said, referring to the goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“We need a major course correction,” he added.

In spite of this, the UAE, a major oil exporter, has also called for a slower transition away from fossil fuels in the past. “The future is clean but it is not here yet,” Jaber told an oil conference in Abu Dhabi in 2021.

The country is expanding oil and gas production, which the International Energy Agency has said is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

“Inclusive” energy transition

Jaber also heads the state oil giant Adnoc and his appointment to lead the climate summit this year fuelled activists’ worries that the fossil fuel industry was hijacking the world’s response to the global warming crisis.

But Jaber said on Tuesday his presidency would bring a much needed fresh approach to tackle climate change challenges.

“As Cop28 president, I will lay out a roadmap for Cop28 that is inclusive, results-oriented and far from business as usual,” he said.

UAE plans to have it both ways as Cop28 climate summit host

“It is in our common interest to have the energy industry working hand in hand and alongside everyone on the solutions the world needs. This is just logical and makes sense,” Jaber said.

“We are in the UAE not shying away from the energy transition,” he claimed, “we are running towards it.”

He quoted UAE president Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan who said in 2015: “If we make the right investments today, there will come a time when the UAE would celebrate the last barrel of oil”.

Jaber told the summit: “That was a bold call to action which resonated deeply around the world and it certainly resonated with me”.

UAE puts oil company boss in charge of Cop28 climate talks

International agenda

On Loss and Damage, one of the critical issues of Cop27, Jaber said “capital is critical to make the loss and damage fund real and operational and it is the key to a fair deal on climate finance for the Global South”, referring to developing nations.

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The loss and damage fund, agreed to at the Cop27 conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt last year, was hailed as a breakthrough for developing countries, which could access new funding to rebuild after extreme climate change impacts.

Although it is a wealthy nation which has contributed more than most to climate change, the UAE will likely not be asked to pay into the fund as it is classified by the UN as a developing country.

Jaber also supported a push led by the primer minister of Barbados Mia Mottley to reform financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to dedicate more money to fighting climate change.

“We need real reform of international financial institutions and multilateral banks to unleash more concessional dollars, lower risk and attract more private finance to vulnerable communities,” Jaber said.

This initiative was included in the COP27 final text, which called on countries to “reform multilateral development bank practices and priorities” so they can start “adequately addressing the global climate emergency”.

Two of the World Bank’s biggest shareholders, the US and Germany, have supported some of her proposals and they will be discussed at the two institution’s annual spring meetings in April.

The post UAE’s Cop28 boss calls for “course correction” on climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Persian Gulf petrostate came out in force in Sharm el-Sheikh with the second largest delegation in the history of climate summits, including 70 oil and gas lobbyists  – a flavour of what is to come.

The UAE takes on the UN climate talks presidency from the Egyptians at the end of November next year, when it hosts Cop28 on the site of the Dubai Expo.

The Emirates are seeking international clout as the Gulf’s most proactive nation on climate action. It was first in the region to set a 2050 net zero goal. And at Cop27, it became the first to announce absolute emission cuts, instead of from a hypothetical business-as-usual baseline.

But its plan includes expanding oil and gas production, which is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C. The UAE has pitched its role as providing the world with reliable and low-carbon intensity oil and gas for decades to come.

“The UAE is known as a responsible supplier of energy and will continue to play this role as long as the world needs oil and gas,” president Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan told the leaders’ summit at Cop27.

Two-pronged approach

In its climate diplomacy, the UAE is pursuing a two-pronged approach: an aggressive campaign to fund thousands of megawatts of clean energy at home and overseas and even greater efforts to boost its oil and gas production.

It is on the defensive, as the case for leaving fossil fuels in the ground gets more vocal. In Sharm el-Sheikh, more than 80 countries pushed to extend language on phasing down unabated coal power to oil and gas, but petrostates blocked it from formal negotiation. The issue is not going away.

“The Emiratis will find it difficult to deal with a fast-moving debate on fossil fuels, given their economy is structured around oil and gas,” Glada Lahn, a senior research fellow at London-based think tank Chatham House. “Sharm showed that the tide is turning. What’s missing are the great examples of diversification – the UAE could definitely elevate its work on that.”

A federation of seven emirates and home to nearly 10 million people, the UAE is the world’s eighth biggest oil producer in absolute terms and the second biggest per capita.

The discovery of commercial oil in the late 1950s bought enormous riches to Abu Dhabi, the largest of the emirates, where almost all of the country’s oil is pumped.

Today, the UAE says it has the world’s sixth largest crude oil reserves and seventh largest gas reserves.

It has made efforts to diversify the economy away from oil – grasping the need to do so earlier than most of its neighbours. Tourism is a key growth sector. Dubai is becoming a business and financial services hub. Yet, more than half of government revenues still depend on the oil and gas industry, according to Carbon Tracker.

Prepare to be dazzled

The UAE has been assiduously preparing for Cop28 since it received the green light to host the summit at Cop26 in Glasgow, UK last year.

Climate envoy Sultan bin Ahmed al-Jaber started consultations with the UK and Egypt as early as January.

In Sharm el-Sheikh, the Emirates boasted one of the largest country pavilions. The steel structure of the media centre was sprayed with “made in UAE”.

“They will hold a very slick event – they are excellent hosts. That is what they like to do,” said Lahn.

“They try to dazzle visitors. They like to say they are the biggest and the best at everything they do,” Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told Climate Home.

And Cop28 could turn out to be the biggest UN climate summit yet.

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Al-Jaber told the government the event, which will coincide with the UAE’s national day on 2 December, is expected to welcome more than 140 heads of states and over 80,000 delegates at the Dubai expo site – more than double the size of Cop26.

“The expo was supposed to get the UAE back on the global map,” said Ulrichsen. Originally scheduled for October 2020 and plagued by pandemic delays, the event received fewer international visitors than expected. Cop28 is the UAE’s biggest opportunity yet to wield its soft power.

Political prisoners and pragmatism

In the UAE, like in Egypt, where human rights concerns came to the fore, it will be “a very controlled experience,” said Ulrichsen.

“The UAE have been able to brand themselves as a version of southern Spain or Ibiza although below the surface they have similar issues as their neighbours: exploited labour force, political prisoners and a police state,” he added.

In an example of authoritarian solidarity, the UAE last month arrested an Egyptian-American national over criticism of Egypt’s president. Sherif Osman may be extradited to Egypt, his fiancee told Reuters, where she feared he would not get a fair trial.

Downtown Dubai (Photo: Thomas Hackl/Flickr)

The UAE has pitched Cop28 as a moment to find “realistic, practical, and pragmatic solutions to accelerate the global energy transition”.

The summit will hold the first formal assessment of progress since the Paris Agreement came into force – known as the global stocktake. The outcome could be critical in spurring much -needed emission cuts this decade.

Adaptation and agriculture are poised to be key priorities for the host, which imports 85% of the food it consumes. Under a partnership with the US, the UAE pledged to invest $1bn in high-tech “climate-smart” agriculture. The alliance is controversial for favouring intensive agriculture over nature-friendly farming and working with climate-denying meat lobby groups.

Breaking cover

In the climate talks, the UAE negotiates under the Arab Group, chaired by Saudi Arabia, which takes most of the flak for the group’s position.

Cop28 “might force them to break cover,” said Ulrichsen.

For the UAE, like other producers, that conversation cannot happen without the oil and gas industry, who have received an early invitation to Cop28.

“The hydrocarbon industry will have to be included as part of the mix,” climate envoy Al-Jaber said of the summit earlier this year. Their expertise is necessary to develop “meaningful, practical climate solutions,” he added.

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Al-Jaber has a stake in the oil business. Minister of industry and advanced technology, he is also CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the state-owned oil company. In addition, he is chairman of Masdar, a government-owned renewable energy company he helped establish.

“Wearing these different hats at the same time shows the UAE’s commitment to further climate action is balanced with the fact that its political wellbeing depends on oil and gas,” said Rice University’s Ulrichsen.

“It is not hydrocarbons or solar, not wind or nuclear or hydrogen. It is all the above,” Al-Jaber told The National, an Abu Dhabi newspaper owned by the royal family.

While Adnoc is planning to invest $127 billion in expanding production and downstream activities in the next five years, it is also taking part in a government partnership to scale up renewable capacity.

UAE special envoy Sultan Al Jaber at Cop26 in Glsgow (Photo: IISD/ENB)

The UAE was early in the region in establishing a climate ministry, now headed by Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri, a woman representing the “young, progressive nation” the government wants to world to see.

Renewable leadership

In 2012, Abu Dhabi was chosen to house the International Renewable Energy Agency headquarters.

The Emirates were early adopters of renewable energy in the Gulf – and their renewable installed capacity far outstrips that of neighbouring countries.

With abundance of sunshine, the UAE boasts some of the world’s cheapest solar power. The government expects to have installed more than 9GW of solar capacity by 2030, tripling current levels.

It is establishing itself as a renewable energy financier overseas. The government says it has invested more than $50bn in clean energy projects in 70 countries. It promises to supply clean electricity to 100 million people in Africa by 2035.

At Cop27, it signed a deal to develop a 10GW onshore wind farm in Egypt – one of the largest in the world.

And it struck a partnership with the US to mobilise $100bn in financing and technical support to deploy 100GW of clean energy globally by 2035. That includes nuclear and technologies to cut emissions from oil and gas production such as carbon capture and storage.

“If you look at their size, they do punch above their weight,” said Mia Moisio, who leads the Climate Action Tracker project at NewClimate Institute.

As one of the world’s richest and most polluting countries per capita, the UAE is a prime candidate to expand the donor base for climate finance.

Fuzzy net zero aspirations

In October 2021, the UAE became the first Gulf state to set a 2050 net zero goal. But it has yet to set out credible plans to get there.

Under its latest 2050 energy strategy, dated 2017, the nation aimed for renewable and nuclear energy to make up 50% of its installed power capacity by mid-century.

The rest would be met with gas and “clean coal” – a misleading term that usually refers to coal-fired power plants fitted with carbon capture and storage technology.

This year, the UAE was among a handful of countries that heeded a call to step up their 2030 climate plans. It pledged to cut emissions 31% compared to business-as-usual, up from 23.5% previously.

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At Cop27, the UAE set out absolute emission reduction milestones on the road to net zero. It aims to cut emissions 18% compared to 2019 levels by 2030 and 60% by 2040. But the announcement didn’t quantify the 2019 baseline – making it difficult to assess.

The UAE's last published national greenhouse gas inventory is for 2014. “There are vastly different estimates for [carbon] emissions when you compare different sources,” Moisio said. “Without their own baseline, it’s a bit of a wild guess.”

The UAE unveiled its National 'Net Zero by 2050' Pathway today at #COP27, living up to its legacy as the first MENA nation to commit to #NetZero by 2050. @MoCCaEUAE will lead the national strategy, in collaboration with 20 federal & local government entities. #UAEforClimate pic.twitter.com/AqjKfYjOiL

— Office Of The UAE Special Envoy For Climate Change (@uaeclimateenvoy) November 11, 2022

Climate Action Tracker scores the UAE’s climate plan as “highly insufficient” to meet global climate goals. The plan, it says, is aligned with more than 3C of warming.

While the UAE is planning to use less fossil fuel in its own energy mix, it plans to export more and protect carbon-intensive industries such as aluminium, steel and cement.

Adnoc aims to increase oil production to five million barrels per day by 2027, up from around 3.5 million today. It is expanding offshore gas drilling to reduce reliance on imports from neighbouring Qatar and export to Germany.

Gambling on failure

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning oil and gas are counted in the consumer country. The UAE could achieve CO2 cuts without halting fossil fuel production for exports. But fugitive emissions of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas, count at the wellhead, where they are coming under increased scrutiny. And critically, the strategy relies on others continuing to buy oil and gas.

Without a rollout at scale of carbon capture technologies, the UAE’s net zero plan “is predicated on the rest of the world failing to achieve net zero,” Jim Krane, another fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute, told Climate Home. “There is nobody that matters that doubts climate change anymore. So oil producers are trying to play catch-up."

‘Oil and gas trade show’ promotes carbon capture at Cop27

To meet its net zero goal, the UAE is considering carbon capture and storage, direct air capture and “ocean-based solutions” to store carbon back into the Earth.

With depleted oil and gas reservoirs and suitable geology, Gulf countries have some of the highest potential for storing carbon dioxide underground. A group of experts is campaigning to get the concept of “geological net zero” recognised in the UN climate space and endorsed by Gulf’s oil producers – starting with Cop28 host UAE.

At Cop27, proponents of the concept met with the UAE presidency. It could be just what they need to square the circle.

Yet emissions capture technology remains expensive and never 100% effective, after decades of development. Campaigners widely view it as a "false solution".

“[UAE] want to be seen as being part of the public debate while protecting their interest. They are walking a tight rope,” said Ulrichsen.

Despite repeated requests, the UAE's Cop28 team did not make anyone available to Climate Home for interview.

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The government provided emergency relief to help people cope in the aftermath of the floods, but migrants told Climate Home News they are concerned about more flooding and extreme weather in the future in a country that is ill-equipped to deal with heavy rainfall.

Heavy rains began on 27 July, resulting in flash floods across the UAE. Seven people died in the floods, all of them Asian migrants. Five of the seven who died were Pakistani citizens, according to Pakistan’s embassy in the UAE. Neither the UAE or Pakistan have shared more details about the victims.

Sharjah, the UAE’s third most populous city, and the emirate of Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman, were among the worst hit.

“At first we were enjoying the rain but then it got dangerous quickly,” said Amir Bukhari, a migrant from Pakistan who works in sales and lives in Sharjah. “Roads started collecting water. I live on the ground floor and the water started coming inside and that was scary.”

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“I didn’t need to evacuate and there was not too much damage,” Bukhari told Climate Home.  “I cannot afford to buy new furniture or move somewhere.”

Two-thirds of UAE’s residents do not have home insurance. Almost 90% of the UAE’s population is made up of migrants, who often have difficult living and working conditions.

“I am worried about those who are very vulnerable, the migrant workers and undocumented migrants,” said Natasha Abaza, an urban designer and planner of Arab origins, who is now based in the UK and works at the architecture firm Prior + Partners.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think they are any resilience plans to prepare urban cities in the Gulf for flooding. They have money so they can help with the damages but I think that is the whole plan right now,” she said. “There is no resilience because of, well, racism.”

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UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) told local press that climate change is responsible for the increased frequency of heavy rains, which can cause flooding – especially in the mountainous areas of the northern Emirates.

Such extreme weather events “may be even more impactful in a warming world” in the southeastern Arabian peninsula, according to a study by Khalifa University of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, in partnership with the UAE’s NCM. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, meaning extreme events last longer, the study notes.

Faizal E, who would not give his full name as he fears “offending the government”, was forced to leave his home in Fujairah, with his wife and two children, along with hundreds of other families, when floods hit the region in July. The NCM issued a code red alert, signifying that “hazardous weather events of exceptional severity are forecast.”

“We stayed in a government facility for a few days but now I am back home,” he told Climate Home. “The government was very helpful and worked hard to rescue us.”

“Red Crescent and other charities have been providing free hot meals to [everyone], no questions asked,” he said. Over 500 volunteers are working in coordination with organisations such as the Emirates Red Crescent. “There was a lot of damage…the UAE is not a country that sees a lot of rain.”

Faizal praised the authorities for “quick and successful restoration efforts” but is concerned about similar outcomes if heavy rains occur again.

“I think heavy rains show the country’s strongest and weakest points,” he says. “They are so capable of offering help and saving people but there are no plans to prepare for this type of weather, which is rare but happening more and more now.”

Faizal is no stranger to heavy rains because he is a migrant from Kerala, India, which experiences monsoon rains for several months each summer.

“I think my town in Kerala sees this much rain usually during the summer but that is just how the weather is there,” he said. “The UAE does not see this type of rain. It is built better in many ways but it is not built to handle such weather.”

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Many of the large cities in Fujairah are located in valleys and have drainage systems that are not able to cope with heavy rainfall or dams to protect people from flash floods.

Large and expensive development projects are often built on flood-prone areas because the “likelihood [of severe floods] is very unlikely,” said Abaza.

“They know it, of course. They have access to this data, [but] they don’t care,” she said. “I am not talking about the UAE specifically, [but] about the region in general.”

The wealthiest cities of UAE boast record-breaking infrastructure, including some of the tallest buildings in the world. This might be part of the problem.

“Everything that has been built there has been built against nature. And nature will fight back,” said Abaza. “Over-engineering to fight these floods is never the solution.”

Instead, more drainage, ending developments in flood-prone areas and landscape restoration should be prioritised, she said.

A report from Khalifa University recommends the following infrastructure investments: “Drains need to be up to the job, or the roads will flood. Dams need to protect from flash flooding, especially in dry river bed wadi [valley] areas. Airport runways need to slope, so the rain runs off into the drains (which must work).”

The UAE was not the only country in the Arab Gulf to experience severe flooding. Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia also witnessed heavy rainfall last month, something the arid region has not seen during the summer in over 30 years.

The UAE government did not respond to Climate Home’s request for comment.

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Abu Dhabi skyline (Flickr/ osamayy)

By Alex Pashley

The United Arab Emirates’ largest lender by assets is ramping up finance for clean energy projects.

The “underlying drivers are long-term and strong,” said the National Bank of Abu Dhabi, announcing plans to lend and invest US$10 billion over the next 10 years.

The commitment helps tackle a US$640bn shortfall for energy investments across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

It marks a gradual embrace of clean energy by petropowers in the Gulf region, as governments look to cut wasteful consumption of fossil fuels. It also charts a rise in Global South countries making available climate finance for other developing nations.

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“As the leading bank in the Middle East, we want to make a real contribution to the region’s ability to rise to the energy challenge,” said group CEO, Alex Thursby.

“We believe that even in the current mix of low oil prices, the transition towards more renewable sources in the energy mix will continue because the underlying drivers are long term and strong.”

The six-country Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes the UAE, could save 2.5 billion barrels of oil and create 200,000 clean energy jobs in 2030 if it makes good on its renewables pledges, according to a recent report.

The post UAE opens $10bn green credit line in Gulf first appeared first on Climate Home News.

Abu Dhabi and neighbouring Arab emirates depend heavily on oil (Pic: Flickr/Paolo Margari)

By Megan Darby

The United Arab Emirates plans to get 24% of energy from clean sources by 2021, up from 0.2% in 2014.

That was the most concrete policy in its submission to the UN on Thursday, three weeks after the official deadline. It was the 153rd country to enter a pledge and the second Gulf state after Oman.

Unlike most other countries of similar wealth, the federation of seven sheikhdoms did not set an economy-wide target for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

In its climate plan, the UAE welcomed the “inclusive” process by which governments make voluntary contributions to a UN deal due to be finalised in Paris this December.

This was “consistent with a recognition of the special circumstances of developing countries with high dependence on fossil fuel production”.

While it has the most diverse economy in the Persian Gulf, the UAE depends on oil and gas for around a quarter of its wealth.

It is aiming to branch out further into sectors like tourism and finance, a strategy it says will “yield co-benefits” for the climate.

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Despite its citizens being the 19th richest in the world, the UAE has not chipped into funds for the world’s poor to go green and adapt to rising temperatures.

“Development is not just about wealth,” negotiator Majid Al Suwaidi told Climate Home at last year’s climate summit in Lima. “We recognise that is a short term thing and we have to think about our future prospects.

“Although we are working very hard to diversify our economy, we remain very dependent on fossil fuels.”

Oil-exporting states have proved some of the most reluctant to commit emissions cuts to support a global agreement.

Oman offered to reduce greenhouse gases 2% below business as usual by 2030, in a late pledge that allows room for absolute emissions growth. Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria have yet to submit.

Iran, the largest polluter to have kept quiet so far, intends to reveal its plan mid-November, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. It will triple or quadruple its efforts if international sanctions are lifted, climate negotiator Majid Shafie-Pour told the newswire.

Abdalla Salem El-Badri, head of oil cartel OPEC, defended its members for their tardiness at an oil conference in London this month.

“It has to be a win-win situation,” he said in response to a question by Climate Home.

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Syncrude Aurora tar sands, Canada
(Pic: Flickr/Elias Schewel)

By Megan Darby

Oil cartel OPEC will not cut production even if prices drop to US$20 a barrel, Gulf ministers have insisted.

From a June peak of US$116 a barrel, oil prices have almost halved to their lowest levels in five years, on weak demand.

That unexpected drop has achieved what environmental protesters could not: prompted oil companies to cancel or delay risky tar sands and deepwater projects.

US shale developments could be next for the chop after Gulf states this week reiterated OPEC’s November decision to maintain output.

OPEC’s production has been steady for years at 30 million barrels a day, noted Saudi Arabia oil minister Ali Al-Naimi, while other countries ramped up.

In an interview with the Middle East Economic Survey, Al-Naimi explained: “In a situation such as this, it is difficult if not impossible for the kingdom or for OPEC to take any action that would result in reducing its share of the market and allow for an increase in the shares of others at a time when it is difficult to exert control over prices. This would result in the loss of both market share and price.”

Whether the price falls to US$60, $40 or $20 a barrel is “irrelevant”, said Al-Naimi, who also represents the Gulf state at UN climate talks.

Suhail Al Mazrouei, energy minister for the United Arab Emirates, echoed that sentiment in remarks reported by Bloomberg.

‘Irresponsible’ production

He accused non-OPEC oil producers, of which the biggest are US and Russia, of “irresponsible” supply growth and urged them to halt investment.

Goldman Sachs estimates almost US$1 trillion of new oil and gas fields, not including US shale, need a price of US$70 to turn a profit.

The investment bank did not comment on the implications of climate change for these projects, but its conclusions reinforced analysis by the Carbon Tracker Initiative.

Before oil prices fell, Carbon Tracker was warning that effective action to tackle climate change would slash demand for fossil fuel, “stranding” high-cost oil assets.

Its analysts calculated projects with a breakeven price of US$95 a barrel or more would become unprofitable.

Canada’s tar sands fall into the high risk category. If expansion plans are cancelled, it could weaken the case for the embattled Keystone XL pipeline, conceived to carry oil from Canada to the US.

Republicans are expected to try to push through the pipeline, which was narrowly rejected by the Senate last month, when they take control of Congress in January.

But president Barack Obama has the option to veto its construction. His lukewarm remarks at a press conference last week will give heart to opponents, who argue it would drive up emissions.

“It’s very good for Canadian oil companies and it’s good for the Canadian oil industry, but it’s not going to be a huge benefit to US consumers,” Obama said of the project.

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A separate analysis by ClearView Energy Partners cuts the production forecast for four US shale oil sites by 40%. Last week’s decision by New York state to ban fracking for shale gas and oil in the region, over health concerns, only heaped political risk on economic pain for the sector.

The Gulf producers’ stance also hurt fellow OPEC members such as Venezuela, Iran and Nigeria, which depend on prices of more than US$100 to balance their budgets.

Saudi Arabia, which produces nearly a third of OPEC’s total, plans to draw on financial reserves to maintain its spending on development and social welfare.

Al-Naimi said he was “optimistic” the low price was a “temporary and fleeting phenomenon” and demand would recover.

Others argued the low price offers a chance to wean economies off fossil fuel for good.

Analysts at Bloomberg New Energy Finance said it could boost economic growth in oil importing regions including China and Europe, increasing the scope to invest in clean energy.

Maria van der Hoeven, chief of the International Energy Agency, is urging policymakers to seize the “golden opportunity” to put a price on carbon.

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Abu Dhabi and neighbouring Arab emirates have grown wealthy from oil
(Pic: Flickr/Paolo Margari)

By Megan Darby in Lima

The United Arab Emirates is the 19^th richest country the world, with GDP of US$44,000 a head, mostly generated from oil exports.

Yet in the UN climate change negotiations, it and neighbouring Gulf states are classed as developing countries, based on the situation in 1992.

While most rich countries are chipping into the Green Climate Fund to help the world’s poor deal with climate change, the UAE has made no pledge.

At a side event of climate talks in Lima on Friday, lead negotiator Majid Al Suwaidi refused to say whether his country would contribute to the GCF.

“Development is not just about wealth,” he said. “We recognise that is a short term thing and we have to think about our future prospects.

“Although we are working very hard to diversify our economy, we remain very dependent on fossil fuels.”

Carbon bubble

Analysts say at least two thirds of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Negotiators are working towards a deal in Paris next year that is hoped to limit temperature rise to 2C.

But existing emissions cutting commitments by countries fall far short of that goal.

In the absence of a strict “carbon budget”, the International Energy Agency expects fossil fuel demand to continue to grow.

The UAE sees oil and gas as “an important part of the energy mix” for the next 50 years.

In 2012 it and fellow Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain said they would consider releasing emission reduction targets, but nothing has materialised since.

With its well established oil infrastructure, the UAE is able to produce oil more cheaply than unconventional projects like Canada’s tar sands. As such, its oil industry is likely to be viable for longer.

Al Suwaidi said his people knew the bounty could not last forever. In his grandfather’s day, the main source of wealth was pearl diving, which collapsed when the Japanese invented artificial pearls.

“Our natural resources are there to benefit the population but they are only a short term blessing we have,” he said.

The UAE has invested in a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, which pumps carbon dioxide from a steel works into old oil fields. This technique allows it to extract more oil.

Through its Masdar fund, it is also investing in renewables, including the UK’s London Array offshore windfarm and concentrated solar power in Spain.

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Masdar chief Sultan Al Jaber says he is keen to expand global operations after the successful launch of the world’s largest offshore windfarm, which the clean energy giant helped fund.

The United Arab Emirates-based clean energy giant owns 20% of the 175-turbine London Array, which cost £2.2billion to build and is based 20km off the UK coast.

Speaking at the launch, Al Jaber said Masdar was “exploring further investment opportunities”, indicating to reporters that it could support the second phase of the Array, which will boost its capacity from 630 to 1000 mega-watts.

Masdar recently opened the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant, the 100MW Shams 1, next to its Abu Dhabi headquarters, where it is also developing a zero-carbon, zero-waste city.

The London Array boasts 175 turbines which have a total capacity of 630MW – enough to power nearly half a million homes a year

Backed by the UAE state, the organisation reportedly has $1.7 billion invested in clean energy worldwide.

Other overseas projects include an eight turbine 6MW farm in the Seychelles, a 15MW solar plant in Mauritania, and a $1 billion deal with the UK Green Investment Bank to back low carbon innovations.

Masdar Director of Sustainability Nawal Al Hosany described the London Array as “phenomenal” and a “milestone for offshore wind”, and said Masdar was open to future projects where there is clear government support.

“We see when there is a need and a demand, selecting opportunities which have the right environmental and climatic conditions for renewable energy, and the political leadership that supports this project,” she told RTCC.

Pledging to see the London Array project “all the way through”, Al Hosany said there is now a strong economic case for Masdar to increase investments in clean energy around the world.

Despite the recent collapse of Desertec, she said Africa is increasingly attractive to investors, given favourable policy reforms and untapped supplies of wind, geothermal and solar energy.

“Masdar is a profitable organisation and when we invest we have shareholders who look at the return on their investments, so we are a big believer that there is an economic case for investing in renewables,” she said.

“That’s why you can see investment in renewables has increased globally – the largest in all energy sectors – and that shows the viability of this project. It is context related and there are many variables that play a role in how much of an investment, but we believe there is an opportunity and a huge gap in the market.”

Qatar’s hosting of the 2012 UN climate talks and indications from Saudi Arabia that it is keen to move from a hydrocarbon based economy have led some analysts to talk of a green energy revolution in the Middle East.

That may be premature – according to the International Energy Agency the UAE is the fifth largest oil exporter on the planet. Abu Dhabi alone boasts 100 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves.

But Al Hosany argues that the country is fast developing a reputation as the world’s leading developer of renewable energy technologies, which she says demonstrates the UAE’s desire to develop a commercially viable energy mix.

“You develop the skills, the knowledge, the know-how, and your expertise becomes more rounded,” she said.

“Masdar is very proud that our expertise in developing these projects is not only specific to the UAE and not only to certain technologies but we have shown leadership in solar power through Gemasolar, VALLE 1 and 2, and SHAMS 1.

“We have been building PV in UAE and abroad – our team and expertise has positioned us in a unique position.”

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The news is a boost to the GIB which has been limited in its capacity to extend its resources by the government.

The Bank, which is the only of its kind in the world, was set up by the government and allocated £3bn in initial funding.  It works on the basis of a “double bottom line”, with financial and environmental achievements assessed.

It will not be allowed to function like a normal bank and borrow money from the regular markets until the UK economy improves.

Masdar has already invested £500m in renewable energy in the UK with its stake in the London Array offshore wind farm (Source: London Array)

Masdar, which includes a sustainable city, research institute, project development and investment arm, has already sunk £500m directly into the London Array offshore wind farm.

The Financial Times reported that the value of the deal is in the region of £1bn.

UK climate change Minister Greg Barker said the agreement is about more than the investment.

“We always intended this brand-new financial institution to act as a catalyst to attract other finance into the UK low carbon economy.

“This alliance is a big step in that direction, and a huge vote of confidence in the UK clean energy sector. But this agreement is about more than just money. Given the achievements of Masdar, it makes strong strategic sense too.”

Investment on that scale will enable the GIB to extend its reach until it is allowed to borrow from more traditional sources. The Treasury has said the national debt must be reduced by 1% of GDP first.

The Bank was approved by the European Commission in October 2012 but received a setback when it’s chairman Sir Adrian Montague resigned. He is yet to be replaced.

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French President Francois Hollande will address a sustainability event in the UAE before lobbying the country’s President on behalf of Total for a long-term oil contract.

In a one day visit to the Gulf nation, Hollande will first talk at the opening ceremony of the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) on Tuesday 15 January.

“This trip to the UAE is an opportunity to identify ways the global community can better work together to carve a pathway for sustainability and the deployment of clean energy,” said Hollande of his role at the WFES.

According to Reuters, Hollande will then meet with the UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan to discuss a $10bn deal to operate the Bab sour gas field.

The “sour” is a reference to its high hydrogen sulphide content, a poisonous gas, which requires expertise to remove.

French President Francois Hollande will open the World Future Energy Summit before meeting the UAE’s President to lobby for major oil and gas contracts. (Source: Flickr/LeStudio1)

It is expected that the firm awarded the Bab field will be in pole position to take over the UAE’s largest onshore oil concession, Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO), when it comes up for renewal in 2014.

“Apparently France will be some sort of guest of honour, even though they don’t use that term, because lunch will be dedicated to France,” an unnamed diplomatic source told Reuters.

France is also reportedly in the midst of discussions regarding the sale of 60 fighter jets, while French company Areva is also part of the consortium that will develop the UAE’s first nuclear power plant.

France has been a prominent player at the UN climate change negotiations. Its national development agency will dedicate 50% of its turnover to climate action between 2012-2016.

The country has also volunteered to host the 2015 round of the talks that, on current timetables, will see the agreement of a global deal to reduce emissions.

Oil and gas rich UAE is pursuing a number of clean energy ventures including the experimental low-carbon Masdar City and bank rolling the Zayed Future Energy Prize.

It was one of four Gulf nations to take the first steps towards a carbon emissions reduction pledge at the UN climate talks in Doha last month.

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With the Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan set to start later this month, an architecture student in the UAE has has shown the ties between religion and sustainability with designs for an eco-Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

The proposed eco-Mosque which could be gracing the Abu Dhabi skyline in the future. (Credit: Al Hosn University)

Emirati architect Suhail Mohammed Suleiman’s plans, which were his graduation project, use a number of elements to reduce resource use.

They could now be turned into reality with the proposals passing the first planning hurdle in the UAE capital.

The contemporary design will use a partly translucent polymer called Corian that allows light but not heat to enter, reducing the need for air conditioning in warmer months as well as reducing the need for additional lighting.

Suhail Mohammed Suleiman poses with a model of his eco-Mosque. (Credit: Al Hosn University)

Solar panels will provide some of the building’s electricity and will share the roof with several gardens.

Given the water challenges faced in the region, run off from ritual washing will enter a grey water system and be reused to irrigate surrounding landscaping.

The proposed Mosque would be built on Saadiyat Island alongside the Abu Dhabi Guggenheim and Louvre museums, set to open in 2017 and 2015 respectively.

While the plans have been deemed appropriate for Saadiyat Island’s ultra modern skyline in the making, construction of the project has not been confirmed.

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Water’s significance to the Middle East has been underlined with the announcement that an International Water Summit will be held in Abu Dhabi next year.

The summit will be held alongside the World Future Energy Summit in 2013, in association with the International Water Association (IWA).

Speaking at a press conference, Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, United Arab Emirates Minister of Environment and Water said the new initiative was a response to the growing importance the UAE government gives to water.

“Sheikh Mohammad [Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi] underlined in a lecture last month that water is much more important than oil for the UAE and its people,” he said.

“As a result of the increased pressure on this valuable resource due to various factors including overpopulation, agricultural and economic growth, and unsustainable consumption patterns, various countries around the world are currently facing real problems with water resources.”

“Climate change has increased the pressure on this resource as well,” added Bin Fahd.

Water scarcity – both in terms of clean drinking water and that used for agricultural irrigation – are already putting pressure on many countries, including those in the Middle East.

Hydro-climatic hazards such as droughts and floods are likely to further exacerbate the problem and could put more pressure on existing social tensions in the region.

This announcement comes the same week as a European Commission event entitled ‘Climate change and water security in the Middle East’ looks to address these problems.

In 2011 a study from risk analysts Maplecroft found much of the Gulf and North Africa ranking high or extreme for water stress, compared to much of Europe where water stress is low.

Many commentators are already predicting that water resources will be the next big issue in these regions which have already experienced political and social unrest over the last year.

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