During his speech at the Global Energy Forum - an event the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, has hosted in the UAE for the past six years - Al Jaber said that when the time comes, the oil-rich nation will celebrate "The last barrel of oil." He spoke about his time leading the UAE's state-owned renewable energy company Masdar and called for "Practical solutions" to the climate crisis at COP28.
Al Jaber's reputation has been shaped by some of the world's most influential PR agencies, which have used his roles as CEO and chair of the UAE's renewable energy company and visionary behind the futuristic Masdar City to make him the face of the country's fight against climate change.
Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and John Kerry, U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, attend the opening session of the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 14, 2023.
Phillips doesn't declare any affiliation with the oil company on his LinkedIn account, which states that the former CNN and MSNBC producer has been a senior adviser at the UAE's climate envoy office and the ministry Al Jaber oversees since 2015.
"It's about pouring money into a country to gain strategic leverage in the long run." "It's about pouring money into a country to gain strategic leverage in the long run." A year after Al Jaber became CEO, Masdar inked a lucrative contract with Edelman to help promote one of its flagship projects: Masdar City, a proposed zero-carbon "City of the future" in the Abu Dhabi desert.
Graphic: The Intercept/Drilled When asked what he thought of Masdar's and the UAE's progress on renewables, Kerry responded only, "Ugh, I know." Al Jaber's supporters have pointed to his work with Masdar and Masdar City as proof of what he might do for COP: map a pathway for a profitable transition off fossil fuels that the industry can get behind.
If Masdar City is the exemplar, climate advocates are right to be concerned about Al Jaber's ability to deliver real emissions reductions.
King Charles III receives Sultan Al Jaber, COP28 president-designate and UAE special envoy for climate change, at London's Buckingham Palace on Feb. 16, 2023.
Al Jaber has long recognized the importance of surrounding himself with credible allies; engaging "Thought leaders" was a key task for Edelman during its early work on the Masdar account.
Masdar's money put Al Jaber into partnerships with the likes of GE, Siemens, and Mitsubishi, and Edelman's Rolodex put him into rooms with the elite of Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. By 2010, Al Jaber was the UAE's special envoy on climate change and attending COP16 in Cancun, where he met Kerry, then Massachusetts senator.
Al Jaber hired Adnoc's first communications team, bringing on Omar Zaafrani, the man he'd tasked with forging international partnerships at Masdar.
https://theintercept.com/2023/10/25/cop28-uae-oil-climate-sultan-al-jaber/
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