UAE’s climate summit chief pledges ‘brutally honest’ assessment on missed goals

With less than five months until the COP28 environmental summit opens in Dubai, the event’s Emirati leader, Sultan Al Jaber, pledged to confront the world’s slow response to global warming.

Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Al Jaber, president-designate of the United Nations climate change conference that will be hosted by the UAE, said more pressure will be applied on governments to accelerate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. He also laid out the schedule for the two-week event that opens Nov. 30 and will include the participation of some 200 countries.

“We must be brutally honest about the gaps that need to be filled, the root causes and how we got to this place here today,” Jaber told climate ministers and senior officials from the European Union, the U.S., China and other G20 countries. “Then we must apply a far-reaching, forward-looking, action-oriented and comprehensive response to address these gaps practically.”

Jaber, who is also head of the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, said delegates at the conference will engage in a “global stocktake” that will indicate how far their countries lag behind goals for reduced fossil fuel use and making the transition to renewable energy production.

The stocktake exercise addresses the recognition that the current pace of replacing carbon-based fuels is insufficient to meet the target set in the U.N.’s 2015 Paris Agreement that would try to limit global warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels.

“Today I am calling on all of us to disrupt business as usual, unite around decisive action and achieve game-changing results,” he said. “We need to challenge old models that were built for the last century. We need to break down silos that are slowing progress. And we need to bridge divides that are blocking critical breakthroughs.”

Some members of Congress and European legislators have attacked the choice of Al Jaber to preside over COP28 given his company’s prominence in the fossil fuel industry. The appointment was defended by John Kerry, the White House special envoy for climate, who said Al Jaber’s connection to the industry and his role in the UAE government will make the conference more effective. Al Jaber said in Brussels that he will arrange meetings between heads of the major oil companies, government leaders, the U.N. and international energy agencies. 

Al Jaber, who serves as chairman of Masdar, the UAE’s alternative fuel company,  called for a tripling of the world’s renewable energy capacity by 2030 and a doubling of energy efficiency. He said all governments are being encouraged to update their emissions-cutting targets by September. The UAE’s climate ministry last month said it planned a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, raising its previous goal of 31%.

In response to growing complaints about the costs of energy transition, Al Jaber called on international financial institutions to provide more funds to help poorer countries address climate change.

He said the conference would be built around four pillars: “Fast-tracking the energy transition, fixing climate finance, focusing on lives and livelihoods, and making COP28 fully inclusive.”

Sizzling Middle East offers laboratory for desert start-ups

Global warming, vanishing rivers and sun-pulverized soil afflict the Middle East and North Africa with cruel and growing strength. Before they further degrade the planet, though, these forces represent an opportunity for scientists and businesses in the region to develop responses that may slow the environmental damage or, at least, help humans to adapt.

The prospect of mitigating climate change has spawned an emerging industry of startups in Israel that include companies such as WaterGen, which can produce enormous quantities of fresh water from the barest level of humidity in the air, and Nostromo Energy, which uses surplus electric power during periods of excess to store cold thermal energy, which is then used for cooling during peak hours.

A report released last week found more than 300 Israeli businesses developing products and trying to raise money in fields ranging from crop protection, solar power and smart irrigation to creating energy-efficient construction materials and novel desert-grown foods. It notes that some 2 billion people live in deserts or extremely arid climates, and asserts that Israel is one of the few countries that has developed effective technologies for reversing the impact of desertification.

Many of the Israeli start-ups are looking for partners in the Gulf, Israeli trade officials say. One of the drivers for the 2020 Abraham Accords, which Israel signed with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, was the understanding that the region’s punishing heat and environmental damage is a shared problem that could benefit from cooperative solutions.

The study was produced by the DeserTech Climate Technologies Community, a group with anchors in business, government and academia, that seeks to promote Israel’s Negev desert and main city of Beersheva as a hub for research and industry, according to a press release. It was produced in collaboration with Start-Up Nation Central, a Tel Aviv-based organization promoting young Israeli technology companies, and sponsored by the Merage Foundation Israel, the Israel Innovation Institute, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Among the products that Israeli companies have developed in response to desertification are technologies for adapting crops to arid climates, production and purification of water suitable for drinking and agriculture, and management of water delivery systems to remote arid areas, according to the report.

The project aims to position Israel and, particularly the Negev region, as “an international hub for adapting technologies and as the site that will pioneer the connection between entrepreneurs, investors, industry, researchers and policy makers to overcome the challenges of desertification,” DesertTech Community Director Sivan Cohen Shachari said in the release.