His remarks appear to flirt with climate skepticism, although he denies it. In a video recording revealed by the Guardian On December 3, Sultan Al-Jaber, president of COP28 in Dubai, affirmed “that no scientific study, no scenario says that the exit from fossil fuels will allow us to reach 1.5°C”. He responded, annoyed, to a question about his refusal to call for an “urgent” exit from fossil fuels. It was asked by former Irish President Mary Robinson during an informal exchange which took place on November 21.
The man who is also the boss of an Emirati oil company then explains that the objective of keeping the increase in the average temperature of the Earth to 1.5°C was his “North star”. This is the ambitious objective of the Paris agreement. “A reduction and an exit from fossil fuels are, in my opinion, inevitable,” he adds. But you have to be serious and pragmatic. »
“Show me the road map for an exit from fossil fuels that is compatible with socio-economic development, without sending the world back to cave times,” he also added in this 7:39 minute extract. Monday, following this revelation, he tried to calm things down by appearing alongside Jim Skea, president of the IPCC, at a press conference. Recalling that he had an engineering background, he maintained that he “believed and respected” climate science and that it guided his action at every step. “I honestly think there have been some misinterpretations,” he believes.
The International Energy Agency’s roadmap
However, this document exists. It was published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in September 2023. In its “Roadmap to carbon neutrality: A global path to reach the 1.5°C target”, the AIE explains how to achieve this (without returning through the cave box). To do this, the agency recommends tripling the production of renewable energies, doubling energy efficiency, reducing methane emissions, increasing electrification “to achieve 80% of the necessary emissions reductions by to 2030”.
Bill Hare, director of the NGO Climate Analytics, explained to Guardian that Sultan Al-Jaber’s comments are “revealing, disturbing and bellicose”. “Sending us back into the caves is the fossil fuel industry’s oldest trope: it borders on climate denial,” he reminds, adding that “anyone who cares about this roadmap can find it.” in the IEA scenario.
No new fossil fuel extraction projects
What does he recommend? To pursue “well-designed policies, such as early retirement or conversion of coal-fired power plants”, which is “essential to facilitate the decline in demand for fossil fuels and create space for the expansion of clean energy” . In the 2050 carbon neutrality scenario, the development of clean energies (which includes nuclear power for the IEA) and the reduction in demand for fossil fuels do not make it “necessary to invest in new coal-fired power plants, oil and natural gas,” adds the agency. Conclusion: we must not develop new fossil fuel extraction projects.
She adds that “stringent and effective” policies can “boost the deployment of clean energy and reduce demand for fossil fuels by more than 25% by 2030 and by 80% in 2050”. The Executive Director of the IEA recalled the need for these criteria to maintain the 1.5°C course. “Fossil industries have an important role to play,” he emphasizes in a comment published on the Agency’s website on November 30. It calls for “tangible efforts” on their part to tackle their emissions and seize opportunities in the field of clean energy. “Today, the industry [fossile] invests only 2.5% of its capital expenditure in clean energy,” he regrets.
At the start of the COP, on December 1, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recalled that “the science is clear: the 1.5°C limit is only possible if we stop burning all fossil fuels . It is not a question of reducing or attenuating. This is a gradual elimination, with a specific timetable. »
“A rapid and persistent decline in fossil fuels”
This famous “science” is the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which form a solid basis for the state of current knowledge on the climate. Especially, a special report of the IPCC looked, in 2019, at the consequences of global warming at 1.5°C and at the possible trajectories to limit it. “All trajectories compatible with the Paris agreement require a rapid and persistent decline in the use of different fossil fuels this decade and the next,” underlines, with 20 minutesValérie Masson-Delmotte, former co-president of group 1 of the IPCC and who coordinated this report.
According to scientists from the Global Carbon Project, it is “now inevitable” that the threshold of 1.5°C of global warming will be exceeded “consistently” and there is a one in two chance that this will happen in seven years. “Leaders at COP28 will need to agree on rapid reductions in fossil fuel emissions, even to maintain the 2°C target,” said British climate scientist Pierre Friedlingstein, who oversaw the study involving 150 researchers from around the world.