Sultan Al Jaber rarely gives interviews, and though he has made a few keynote speeches at major climate events this year, they have been largely without press conferences. Although the UAE is an outward-looking country, with Dubai and capital Abu Dhabi both cosmopolitan cities, the country’s media is muted and criticism of the government is uncommon, despite a constitutional right to free speech.
Cop presidents occupy a unique role as “honest brokers” at the centre of climate negotiations, in charge of all aspects of the “conferences of the parties” under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But they are also at the mercy of the 196 national governments who send teams of ministers, negotiators and – in most cases – leaders. The parties technically determine what shall be discussed, but presidents guide negotiations.
I have attended 16 Cops, more than almost any other journalist, including many Cops that went almost unnoticed by international media. I’ve seen the heights, from the whoops and cheers that greeted the signing of the 2015 Paris agreement, to the lows, like the scenes of chaos in Copenhagen in 2009, and seen Cop presidents in despair, in triumph, and on the verge of exhaustion.
I’ve had memorable interviews with many, including Alok Sharma, president of Cop26, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was about to publish its “starkest warning yet”. I was one of only a handful of international media to speak to Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister, ahead of the Cop27 summit in Sharm El-Sheikh last year. And I had the pleasure of talking to Laurent Fabius, France’s Cop president and foreign minister, on one of his military jets.
When I first got to sit down with Al Jaber, at the UAE embassy in London in February, we were both on our way to a reception given by King Charles at Buckingham Palace. Al Jaber was viewing his new task with enthusiasm, but was still cautious and the meeting was kept largely informal and off the record.
Over the following months, I was given unique access to Al Jaber – an extensive on the record interview in Abu Dhabi, a visit to Dubai to see the site for Cop28, and another long London meeting. I spoke in depth to many of the senior members of his team, and made contact with whistleblowers who had left it. It was painstaking work, for what promises to be one of the most complex Cops yet – in an oil-producing country which is close “as brothers” to Saudi Arabia, with its reputation for obstructing climate progress.
The portrait which emerges of Al Jaber, published in last weekend’s Saturday (October 7) magazine, is of a highly intelligent and highly capable man – he ran the UAE’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and co-founded its Masdar renewable energy company, which now operates across the world. He has a deep understanding of climate science, and of the engineering and technology that will be needed to solve our emissions crisis.
As Al Jaber sees it, he can bring a business mindset to the negotiations, and has a better chance of being listened to by the oil and gas industry than any previous holders of the role. Supporters who spoke to me include John Kerry, the US climate envoy, the economist Lord Stern, financiers including Ben Goldsmith and various diplomats who could not be named.
But many developing countries privately told me of their alarm that Cop28 could be captured by fossil fuel interests.
The most important thing I’ve learned from Cops is not to pre-judge. None of the outcomes of Cop28 are certain, and unexpected things can happen in closed rooms when negotiators eyeball each other across the table. The hardest work for the summit has yet to be done.
Read more on the road to Cop28:
Some View on the World 