<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/07/uae-oil-firm-cop28-climate-summit-emails-sultan-al-jaber-adnoc>
"The United Arab Emirates’ state oil company has been able to read emails to
and from the Cop28 climate summit office and was consulted on how to respond to
a media inquiry, the
Guardian can reveal.
The UAE is hosting the UN climate summit in November and the president of Cop28
is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil
Company (Adnoc). The revelations have been called “explosive” and a “scandal”
by lawmakers.
The Cop28 office had claimed its email system was “standalone” and “separate”
from that of Adnoc. But expert technical analysis showed the office shared
email servers with Adnoc. After the
Guardian’s inquiries, the Cop28 office
switched to a different server on Monday.
Al Jaber’s dual role has attracted strong criticism, including from the former
UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who called his approach “dangerous”.
Replies to a
Guardian email to the Cop28 office requesting reaction to these
comments, which did not mention Adnoc, contained the text “Adnoc
classification: internal”.
The French MEP Manon Aubry, said: “This is an absolute scandal. An oil and gas
company has found its way to the core of the organisation in charge of
coordinating the phasing out of oil and gas. It is like having a tobacco
multinational overseeing the internal work of the World Health Organization.”
Aubry, who co-led a recent letter to the UN from 133 US and EU politicians
calling for the removal of Al Jaber, said: “The Cop28 office has lost all
credibility. If we care more about preventing a climate disaster than
protecting the profits and influence of fossil fuel companies, we need to react
now.”
Pascoe Sabido, at Corporate Europe Observatory and co-coordinator of the Kick
Big Polluters Out coalition of more than 450 organisations, said the
revelations were outrageous and that Al Jaber’s appointment had been “a huge
blow to the credibility” of the UN’s climate body, the UNFCCC.
“It’s completely inappropriate that an oil corporation was consulted and it
exposes just how influential it has been in shaping what gets presented to the
outside world,” Sabido said. “Until world governments accept that fossil fuels
need to be left in the ground and their lobbyists are no longer allowed to
write the rules of climate action, this will keep happening.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
