More than 130 elected officials from the US Congress and European Parliament have urged US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres to pressure the United Arab Emirates to withdraw the appointment of Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, Emirati minister and boss of the oil giant ADNOC, as president of the next COP scheduled for the fall in Dubai.
“ We urge you to push for the UAE to renounce the nomination of Sultan Al-Jaber “, they write, sharing their “ deep concern “. The credibility of the COP, this global meeting to fight against global warming, depends on it. According to the signatories, American Democrats and Green MEPs, left and center left, the climate summit is seriously compromised by the presence at its head of a CEO of a major oil company.
“ The objective, it’s simple, is to denounce the fact that the international climate negotiations, therefore the COP28, are chaired no more and no less than by the CEO of one of the largest oil companies in the world, the twelfth, explains Manon Aubry, MEP from the Left Group. And so, it seems completely incongruous. »
Limit lobbies
The elected officials also asked to limit the influence of the lobbies of polluting industries in these climate meetings. ” Mail serves a dual purpose. First, it is to ask that the president of the negotiations be replaced. And the second thing is to exclude fossil fuel lobbies from international negotiations. Their presence has steadily increased year after year. In 2022, it was more than 600 lobbyists, that increased by 25%. We cannot make a political decision to save the climate with the very people who are destroying it, namely the fossil fuel companies “, adds Manon Aubry.
Among the supporters of the Emirati minister, we find the director of negotiations of the COP28Adnan Amin, who highlighted Al-Jaber’s qualifications, in particular his 20-year career in the field of renewable energy, but also John Kerry, the American envoy for the climate who had qualified the appointment of Al -Jaber’s terrific choice » and the criticisms against him of unjustified.
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