COP28 opens amid conflict of interest accusations against its presidency

As the latest climate summit starts in Dubai, there are ongoing doubts that a petrostate can move the world from accords to actions in line with the emissions trajectory demanded by the Paris Agreement

COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber has stoutly denied the allegations that documents leaked earlier this week indicated his intention to use the United Arab Emirate’s role at the climate summit to push oil and gas deals with foreign governments.

“These allegations are false,” Jaber told journalists in Dubai just hours before COP28 opened. “Not true, incorrect, not accurate.”

He suggested the reports were “an attempt to undermine the work of the COP28 presidency”, and appeared indignant that anyone would suppose the UAE needed any help with deal-brokering.

“Do you think the UAE or myself needs the COP or the COP presidency to go and establish better deals or commercial relationships?” asked Jaber. “No one in this world had been able to master win-win relationships and fruitful and production partnerships like this country.”

In a statement, he doubled down on promises to deliver on climate, insisting: “We don’t have any time to waste. We need to take urgent action now to reduce emissions. At COP28, every country and every company will be held to account, guided by the north star of keeping 1.5C within reach.

“All parties should be prepared to deliver a high-ambition decision in response to the global stocktake that reduces emissions while protecting people, lives and livelihoods,” Jaber added.

Shipping and deforestation

US climate envoy John Kerry said the global stocktake, which will take place during the climate summit to reveal where the world is, and not, making progress to cut emissions, could be used to get countries to “significantly step up” to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

“The global stocktake needs to earn the credibility of the world by being “candid and strong and visionary and comprehensive,” he told journalists in Dubai.

If emissions-cutting promises made since Paris were fulfilled, “things could be in grasp”, said Kerry, but added that “not everyone was doing what they promised to do; we need to have accountability for that lack of follow through”.

Kerry singled out action on methane from oil and gas companies and countries as one area where there would be progress at COP28. China and the US have pledged to hold a summit on methane during the summit. Taking action on methane is the “easiest, quickest, fastest way to begin to get gains against the warming”, said Kerry.

He also named shipping, heavy industry and deforestation as other areas of focus at the summit.

Finance for mitigation and adaption would be likewise high on the agenda, said Kerry, suggesting that advances could be made “thanks to changes at the World Bank and “literally hundreds of initiatives” that will be announced on financing to move forward the global transition.

“COP28 cannot be just a photo-op,” said UN Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell in a statement. “The reality is that without much more finance flowing to developing countries, a renewables revolution will remain a mirage in the desert. COP28 must turn it into a reality,” he said.

Kerry insisted there would be “progress” at COP28. “The question is, how much progress.”

Calls for reform

But many non-profits believe that the COP process needs a thorough overall if is to genuinely achieve ambitious climate action in line with 1.5C and ensure finance flows shift from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies.

Phyllis Cuttino, chief executive of the Climate Reality Project, a US non-profit led by former vice-president Al Gore, would like to see the UNFCCC introduce “a robust conflict of interest policy, added transparency and decision-making by super majority” as part of the COP process.

Whether the reports about the UAE potentially using COP for oil and gas deals are true or not, Cuttino says the issue of “conflicts of interest” is a problem at COP28 and most in need of attention.

“The COP president sets the agenda and is critical in all the negotiations,” she tells Sustainable Views, hence the incongruence of “one of the largest oil companies in the world” leading a climate summit.

As for the place of fossil fuel companies at COPs, “we are not saying that they can’t attend, but they should be clearly identified as being from the fossil fuel industry and not be hiding in delegations”. Twenty-nine countries brought a total of 200 fossil fuel lobbyists to COP27 in Egypt in 2022 as part of their official delegations, according to a report by non-profit Global Witness.

The Club of Rome think-tank and other non-profits are also coming forward with proposals to reform the COP process. The demands from the Club of Rome include calls for COPs to be based on science, for more regular, smaller meetings, and for multilateral banks and financial institutions to have a “central role in working sessions to ensure pledges become tangible, deliverable work plans”.

Despite the controversies dogging the climate summit, Cuttino believes there can be progress, but adds: “At the end of the day, it is challenging to see how you get to really addressing the root cause of climate change if you can’t address the root cause, namely fossil fuels.”

There is growing momentum, nonetheless, among businesses for a phase-out of the use of fossil fuels that do not use carbon capture and storage, so-called unabated fossil fuels.

More than 200 companies representing over $1.5tn in global annual revenue are signed up to the campaign by non-profit We Mean Business, urging national governments at COP28 “to seek outcomes that will lay the groundwork to transform the global energy system towards a full phase-out of unabated fossil fuels”.

The companies supporting the call to phase out the use of oil, coal and gas without carbon capture and storage, cover a range of sectors and include Sony, Roche, DHL, Coca-Cola, Danone, Nestlé and Unilever.

Kerry said the US would continue to “support language” around a phase-out of unabated fossil fuels: “I find it hard for anyone to continue the unabated burning of fossil fuels in the world in which we live,” he added.