This week, Climate & Capital responds to a recent COP 28 update letter from Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi Oil Company (Adnoc), the UAE’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, and the President-Designate for the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28).

My Dearest Ahmed,

You don’t mind if I call you Ahmed, do you? After all, we are brothers — brothers fighting to end global warming together. So, thank you for your letter on your climate stewardship. Ahmed, we marvel at your efforts to fight to keep the planet cool while also running one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing oil companies.

How do you do it? Your boss in the COP sphere is Secretary António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General. He thinks we are all “trapped in a world where fossil fuel producers and financiers have humanity by the throat.”

But your actual boss, of course, is His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), Ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the UAE. He appointed you to both your posts. His plans to expand the Emirates’ oil and gas production are so aggressive that even your neighbor, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), thinks MBZ “stabbed us in the back.”

So we are not surprised that in your letter, you focused on almost everything but the fate of fossil fuels. After all, since at least the 1960s, says US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the fossil fuel industry has known about the dangers of climate change but has chosen not to solve the problem but instead to “spend millions of dollars to spread disinformation.”

Reda more at mailchi.mp