For the chief executive of one of the world’s most successful oil companies, presiding over a UN-backed agreement to dump fossil fuels seems an unlikely task. But Sultan al-Jaber, the United Arab Emirates’ most trusted technocrat and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, must oversee just that.
At this year’s COP28 climate summit, negotiators from almost 200 countries are sparring over the future for fossil fuels, the biggest contributor to global warming when burnt. The UAE, one of the world’s largest oil exporters, wants to be among the last hydrocarbon producers standing.
Brokering a deal among a diverse array of countries, often with competing and contradictory interests, not least those of Saudi Arabia, has been a challenge for Jaber. The 50-year-old’s rise through UAE officialdom has been driven by a steely self-belief matched with a combative style. Yet the same force of personality that helped propel him up the ranks of Emirati technocracy has now collided with the delicate diplomatic task of forging climate consensus.