Climate movement must be aware of the threats the UAE poses ahead of COP28. A trio of human rights organizations today released a new briefing that looks to highlight the threats that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) poses to the aims of the climate justice movement in advance of the country’s hosting of COP28.

FairSquare, the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Centre and ALQST for Human Rights have co-published “Well of Fear: extraction and autocracy in the UAE” to challenge the UAE’s public relations campaign ahead of COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which starts on November 30 at Expo City, Dubai.

The brief sets the UAE’s grim human rights crackdown of the past decade in the context of the country’s social contract, which expects citizens to demonstrate absolute political quiescence in return for a share in the benefits of continued fossil fuel extraction. On September 1, the Centre for Climate Reporting and the New York Times reported leaked audio of conversations between UAE and COP28 officials in which they discussed plans to “counter” and “minimize” criticism of the country’s human rights abuses.

Climate movement must be aware of the threats the UAE poses ahead of COP28

“COP participants need to be alert to the UAE’s PR tricks. Major steps to stem global demand for fossil fuels will present a real threat to the power of the UAE’s ruling family, and they will resist them with every measure at their disposal,” said James Lynch, co-director of FairSquare.

The UAE has already paid millions of dollars to western public relations firms in order to present itself as an ally of climate justice and a champion for the demands of the global south, while advancing dangerous arguments questioning whether the world is “ready”  for the phasing out of fossil fuels and rapidly expanding its own domestic production of oil and gas. Emirati citizens have no ability to challenge any of these policies.

“There is literally no one inside the UAE that can speak up freely to criticize the state’s policy on oil or climate change. Anyone who tried to do so would find themselves rapidly silenced or imprisoned,” said Hamad al-Shamsi, Executive Director of the Emirates Detainees Advocacy Center.

Read more at alqst.org

Photo: alqst.org