The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), which began on November 30 and will continue until December 12, is being held in the United Arab Emirates. As is known, these conferences are convened for UN member states to assess progress in combating climate change and to make plans to manage the fight against the climate crisis within the framework of the UNFCCC’s guidelines.

This year’s conference, the twenty-eighth, began under the shadow of a number of controversies.

The fact that the United Arab Emirates is an oil-producing country, combined with the appointment of Sultan Al Jaber as the conference president, has fueled debates. After all, Al Jaber is the CEO of Adnoc (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company), the largest drilling company in the Middle East, which is preparing to significantly expand its drilling operations.

Perhaps this could have been normalized and not caused much outrage, but a statement Al Jaber made right at the start of the conference infuriated climate activists and scientists. What did Al Jaber say? He stated that there is no scientific evidence showing that phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Although he later claimed that his words were misunderstood, when another statement he made shortly before the conference is considered, the likelihood of a misunderstanding disappears. Days before the event, Jaber had said on another platform that phasing out coal, oil, and natural gas would “take the world back to caves.”

In fact, the oddities are not limited to the president’s words and statements. According to briefing documents obtained by the BBC, the host of COP28, the United Arab Emirates, planned to use its role as an opportunity to make new oil and gas deals. Within this scope, the UAE planned to discuss fossil fuel agreements with fifteen countries. In addition, according to a Reuters report, ten of the world’s largest development banks pledged at the COP28 summit to accelerate efforts to combat climate change — but said nothing about ending financing for fossil fuel projects.

It makes you want to shout, “Enough already, a little sincerity,” doesn’t it?
The examples of such insincerity keep piling up. We can even step a bit outside the conference for an example. For instance, reports from the non-profit journalism organization Center for Climate Reporting (CCR) and Channel 4 News revealed that Saudi Arabia had published a “petroleum sustainability program” plan on the English-language version of its government website, with one of its goals listed as “enhancing sustainability.” However, in the Arabic version of the site, the name of the program changes to “petroleum demand sustainability program,” and its aim is stated as “maintaining and developing demand for hydrocarbons as a competitive energy source by increasing its economic and environmental efficiency.” Interesting, isn’t it?

Anyway, let’s return to COP28. What has happened so far shows that the boundless desire for profit still overshadows a major crisis like climate change and makes taking action more difficult.

Still, it would not be accurate to say that no results have been achieved or that the picture is entirely negative. COP28 negotiators have agreed to establish a Loss and Damage Fund to compensate vulnerable countries for the impacts of climate change and to allocate at least $100 billion annually to this fund by 2030.

Hopefully, this agreement will also pave the way for concrete steps toward phasing out (or even quickly ending) the use of fossil fuels — something that has long been awaited.

Until the next article, stay healthy…

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