The United Arab Emirates, UAE, the host of the next global climate conference, on Thursday appointed the chief of a major state-run oil company to lead the meeting.
Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and the industry minister, has been appointed as the president-designate of the United Nations conference known as COP28 which is due later this year.
Al Jaber is also the UAE climate envoy and chairman of Masdar, a government-owned renewable energy company based in Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital.
Local media reports that he played a key role in shaping the country’s clean energy path.
“This will be a critical year in a critical decade for climate action.”
COP28 is scheduled to kick off on November 30 in Dubai, a thriving business city of the UAE’s seven-emirate federation.
The 2022 edition of the annual conference was held in November in Egypt where negotiators agreed to create a long-sought fund to compensate poorer countries for damage caused by climate change.
However, the talks faces a barrage of criticism for failing to agree new milestones on the reduction of climate-damaging fossil fuels, as part of efforts to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
dpa/NAN
