The UAE Launders its International Reputation through the COP28 Machine. In November of this year, Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is to preside over the United Nations COP28 climate talks in 2023 as President-Designate. It will take place in Dubai, UAE. Al Jaber will be directing the COP’s narratives on...
It’s an awkward moment for the oil industry to have at last won its long-sought “seat at the table” in international climate talks. The contradictions and conflicts in play at this opaque moment in the energy transition are mind-boggling. Global temperatures are flaring. War-related market disruptions are fading. The economic outlook is extremely fuzzy. Neither...
Al Gore vs. Oil-Rich Dubai, Host of COP28. Al Gore, former US Vice President, recently held a TED talk in anticipation of COP28. It is the upcoming Conference of the Parties, aka UNFCCC or 2023 United Nations Climate Conference, November 30th–December 12th, 2023, to be held at Expo City, Dubai. It increasingly looks like a...
Swedish wine: How global warming is shifting Europe’s vineyards northwards. Scandinavian wine could be the next big thing as unpredictable weather hits southern Europe. Scandinavia isn’t exactly what connoisseurs would define as prime wine country. But with climate change making for warmer and longer growing seasons and new varieties of grapes adapted to this landscape,...
Wealthy Russian buyers are fueling UAE real estate boom. Russian buyers are expected to continue fueling the real estate boom in the UAE in the short term. They are purchasing more and more expensive properties than other buyers. With rent prices soaring in the UAE, locals and expatriates alike are increasingly looking towards buying property....
Russia, Iran, and the Territorial Dispute with the UAE. Under President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran has carved out an overseas agenda that is a patent departure from the country’s 1979 Revolution-era notion of “neither East nor West,” reflected in a seemingly irreversible estrangement from Europe. It had alarmed tensions with the United States, and a disproportionate...
New Data: Shut Down 60% of Existing Fossil Fuel Extraction to Keep 1.5°C in Reach. In May 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) sent shockwaves through the fossil fuel industry and its allies in government. It concluded that no new coal mines or oil and gas fields should be developed if the world is to hold global...
Polishing off Plastic Pollution? “There’s a great future in plastics.” The iconic line, advice to a fresh-from-college ingenue played by Dustin Hoffman in the 1967 film The Graduate, was intended for laughs. But in 2023, it highlights a grim reality. The world’s economies generate roughly 400 million tons of plastic waste each year. And only nine percent...
Oil companies are hiring TikTok influencers to court young people. The TikTok star Nora Capistrano Sangalang is best known for posting videos about her grandson, in which she describes herself as “our Filipino grandma” and a “granfluencer.” But in September, she posted something that surprised and irritated some of her 2.3 million followers across TikTok and Instagram: an advertisement for the oil...
Wagner Group’s Engagements in West Asia and North Africa. Wagner Group’s mutiny against the Russian military establishment and its sudden withdrawal in June 2023 have created chaos in Russia. This leaves analysts of Russian politics with several questions regarding the future of Wagner and the country’s internal dynamics. Such questions have also been raised in...