UAE names oil company chief Sultan al-Jaber to lead UN COP28 climate talks
The United Arab Emirates on Thursday named a veteran technocrat who both leads Abu Dhabi's state-run oil company and oversees its renewable energy efforts to be the president of the upcoming United Nations climate negotiations in Dubai, highlighting the balancing act ahead for this crude-producing nation. Authorities nominated Sultan al-Jaber, a trusted confidant of UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who serves as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. That firm pumps some 4 million barrels of crude a day and hopes to expand to 5 million daily. Those revenues fuel the ambitions of this federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula as well as the production of more of the heat-trapping carbon dioxide that the UN negotiations hope to limit. But al-Jaber also once led a once-ambitious project to have a USD 22 billion "carbon-neutral city on Abu Dhabi's outskirts an effort later pared back after the global financial crisis that struck the Emirates hard beginning12-01-2023