It’s Time to Find Out How an Oil Exec Leads a Climate Conference

When COP28 kicks off in Dubai on Nov. 30, it will mark the next stage of a prolonged referendum on this year’s conference president. Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc), has been criticized for blurring the lines between his day job and his conference role, and the delayed release of a COP28 agenda invited one constant question: What kind of climate conference could an oil boss possibly host?

“When I was in the UAE, I got told a couple of times, ‘Look, over here, things happen at the last minute,’” says Akshat Rathi on this week’s Zero. Rathi, who profiled Al Jaber in April, is more optimistic about the conference now than he was at the time. “It feels like there will be an agreement,” he tells Bloomberg Green Executive Editor (and Zero guest host) Aaron Rutkoff. Still, “we know by nature of COPs that agreement is never going to be enough.”

Potential points of consensus — known as “landing zones” in COP parlance — include tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency. On the flip side, arguments will play out around climate finance, as well as the difference between “orderly decline,” “phase out” and “phase down” when it comes to fossil fuels. This year’s conference also comes at a tough moment geopolitically, with two ongoing conflicts and uncertainty about where the next gathering will take place. It’s a lot for a COP president to wrangle.