Sultan Al Jaber opened Adipec today with a rallying cry for the oil and gas industry, which he said could provide the solution to climate change.
“This is the year to show the world you are central to the solution. This industry can change the global debate and can change the global outcome,” Al Jaber said. It is time to “silence the sceptics by applying scale, capital, technology to deliver real outcomes and tangible results. It is time to turn rhetoric into results … It is time to unite. It is time to act and it is time to deliver.”
In the run up to Adipec it had not been clear the Adnoc head – and COP28 president – would take up his customary role of opening the conference.
Al Jaber noted that he had addressed the industry, at CERAWeek in March, at which he point he had declared “Houston, we have a problem.”
Speaking at Adipec this morning, Al Jaber answered that challenge. The oil and gas industry “can and must help drive the solutions”, he said.
The COP28 president said that cutting emissions was the “North Star” in order to tackle climate change. The challenge for the industry is to do this while “ensuring human prosperity” through meeting the energy needs of the world’s growing population.
Big impacts
Al Jaber set out three areas to provide the greatest impact in the shortest time. The first is to curb emissions from the production of energy, with months of hard work going into commitments to eliminate flaring by 2030.
The second point was a call for the industry to take a “critical role” in scaling up renewable energies. Such a move, he said, would “future proof the industry’s own business models”. At the same time, though, he warned the intermittent nature of renewables meant they could not provide power for heavy industry.
Al Jaber’s third point was to decarbonise the hard to abate sectors, such as cement, steel, aluminium and heavy transportation.
“COP28 must be a turning point”, Al Jaber said. “Where we begin to get back on track and start our sprint to 2030.”
The event runs until Thursday and has the theme of “decarbonising faster together”.
Al Jaber also held a “changemakers majlis” yesterday. At that event he called for greater collaboration to tackle emissions and slow the pace of climate change.
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