Ultimately, an oilman won a climate summit deal to transition away from oil

It was an unlikely scene: Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of one of the world’s largest oil companies, stood before negotiators from nearly 200 countries on Wednesday and ushered in a major new climate treaty that promises to transition the global economy away from fossil fuels.

In language reminiscent of a speech to receive the award, Mr Al Jaber congratulated the assembled diplomats, and himself, for proving the doubters wrong. After thirty years of United Nations climate agreements that did not even mention fossil fuels such as oil and gas, he chaired the summit that explicitly focused on the root cause of global warming.

“Many said this was not possible,” Mr Al Jaber said.

Mr Al Jaber, 50, was a controversial choice to lead the annual climate talks, which are normally led by a politician or diplomat from the host country. The United Arab Emirates, this year’s host, selected him last January. Although he holds various government positions, Mr. Al Jaber is largely devoted to running the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

His brusque business style was on display at the summit, when at one point he told negotiators to “work harder, work faster, work smarter.” And on Wednesday, just minutes after convening the latest meeting, he declared the deal approved before some diplomats had even reached their seats.

Negotiators from small islands, whose countries are among the most vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate-induced extreme weather events, complained that the deal was approved without their consent. They pointed out that the global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels lacked specific dates and contained many caveats and loopholes.

“It seems you just made the decision and the small island states were not in the room,” Anne Rasmussen, the chief negotiator for a group of 39 small island states, said with anger in her voice. “This process has failed us.”

During this year’s climate summit, the chances of an important new climate agreement seemed slim. Fossil fuel producing countries have managed to keep oil, gas and, until recently, coal out of the final declaration of previous summits. And Mr Al Jaber’s own company is investing at least $150 billion in expanded drilling over the next five years.

But even some climate advocates who initially saw Mr. Al Jaber’s appointment as risky and downright outrageous said that the final deal, while flawed in many ways, exceeded their expectations.

“From the beginning, he had a lot of ambitious goals that sounded good, but we assumed he had no strategy to back them up,” said Alden Meyer, a senior fellow at the climate research group E3G, who attended all but one of the meetings. of the recent climate summits. “But I have to give him credit for getting the results. There are many problems with the final agreement, but there are also things that indicate this is a turning point in the transition away from fossil fuels.”

His approach was not without opponents. Months before the conference began, more than a hundred European and American lawmakers had called for Mr. Al Jaber’s removal, saying he was so compromised he could not strike a fair deal to rein in climate change.

And at the conference, many climate activists found it disgusting that a record number of fossil fuel representatives, at least 1,200 of them, attended this year’s summit.

Many world leaders and environmentalists also criticized the final climate agreement for being riddled with caveats that seemingly favored fossil fuel interests. It encouraged countries to scale up carbon capture, a largely unproven technology favored by oil and gas companies, and recognized a special role in the energy transition for so-called transition fuels, seen as code for natural gas.

But others said it was surprising that nearly 200 countries could even agree to a declaration that the world should transition away from fossil fuels, given long-standing opposition to such language from major oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia.

“The way this process is set up, one country can say no to the whole thing,” said John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy on climate change. “That actually makes it even more remarkable that there is so much ambition in this document.”

All along, Mr Al Jaber had argued that he was ideally suited to the role of building consensus between countries as different in their climate aspirations as Saudi Arabia and Vanuatu, a country that scientists say will become eaten up by sea level rise due to climate change. global warming.

In addition to being an oil sector executive, Mr Al Jaber founded the Emirates’ leading renewable energy company, which has invested billions of dollars in projects around the world. But even more important, he said, was his attitude of understanding and commitment towards fossil fuel producing countries.

In the negotiating rooms closed to the press, his handlers and other negotiators said, an agreement calling for a transition away from fossil fuels was coming into view, after hours of frantic shuttle diplomacy between Mr Al’s team Jaber and representatives with almost diametrically opposed interests. interests.

“In unity and solidarity, we will walk a new path that the UAE Consensus has set for the world,” he said in his speech. “Together we will secure the future of this beautiful planet for many generations to come.”