'Demand will decide' AI Jaber defends his big investment in oil and gas

The president of the Cop28 climate summit will continue with his oil company’s record investment in oil and gas production, despite coordinating an “unprecedented” global deal to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

- Fiona Harvey

Sultan Al Jaber, who led the Cop28 summit in Dubai, is also the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates national oil and gas company, Adnoc. He said the company had to satisfy global demand for fossil fuels.

“My approach is very simple: it is that we will continue to act as a responsible, reliable supplier of low carbon energy, and the world will need the lowest carbon barrels at the lowest cost,” he said, arguing that Adnoc’s hydrocarbons are lower carbon because they are extracted efficiently and with less leakage than from other sources.

“At the end of the day, remember, it is the demand that will decide and dictate what sort of energy source will help meet the growing global energy requirements,” he added.

He referred to the findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world will still need a small amount of fossil fuel in 2050, even when reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions, which is required to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.

Al Jaber said his investment plans were viable within the 1.5C limit.

“The world continues to need low-carbon oil and gas and low-cost oil and gas,” he said. “When the demand stops, that’s a completely different story. What we need to do right now is to decarbonize the current energy system, while we build the new energy system.”