The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed in 1992, designates the annual Conference of Parties to serve as a forum for world leaders to examine current progress and discuss ways to improve in the years ahead. From November 30th to December 12th, the 28th annual meeting is being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) with opening comments provided by Britain's King Charles III. Over 160 world leaders, delegates from 198 countries, and 70 thousand observers are expected to participate. Envoys of American President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping have the mission to deliver pledges of close cooperation.
From the very beginning when the UAE was selected to host COP 28, alarms started sounding. Either UNFCCC management failed to read, or simply ignored, documentation published by the UN Human Rights Council. The UAE has one of the worst human rights records on the planet. Reporters, whose only crime was publishing the truth, are serving lengthy prison terms. Some dissidents, whose terms have been completed, still remain in prison because they were labeled as “enemies of the state.”
In Human Rights Watch’s 2022 Report, the UAE was severely criticized for decades of problems concerning freedom of expression, arbitrary arrests and detainee abuse, migrant workers and forcible deportation, and women’s rights. Not one human rights issue reviewed within that report received a positive rating.
Simultaneously, alarms started sounding on the hypocrisy of selecting a nation dependent upon the exportation of massive amounts of fossil fuel to maintain the wealth of the royal families. This concern became even worse when Dr. Sultan al-Jaber, head of both UAE’s state-owned oil company Adnoc and state-owned renewable energy company Masdar, was announced by the UAE to be the conference’s presiding president. Dr. Jaber now determines the direction and focus of all events.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Having escaped accountability for its human rights abuses and having the UNFCCC ignore the obvious conflict of interest, the behind-the-scenes corruption activities of the UAE are now coming to light.
In possession of leaked documents, on November 26th the BBC published an exposé on UAE’s use of COP 28 to further its own interests. If a corporation within the US behaves like the United Arab Emirate (UAE) is now doing in its hosting of COP 28, the Attorney General would be justified in opening a Racketeering, Influence, Corrupt Organizations (RICO) investigation.
Against the standards set by the UN in hosting this event, the UAE is totally focused on using COP 28 to serve its self-interests. One of the issues to be pushed at the conference is global discouragement of drilling new wells. UAE cannot be criticized for thinking in the long-term. New wells take eight years to develop. Without those new wells in the Americas and Europe, the world becomes more dependent upon Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of which the UAE is a member. Also, the technical advances of hybrid energy will eventually reduce global dependency on fossil fuels. If western nations can meet their own demands, then the UAE and its fellow OPEC members will lose the revenue necessary to finance their single-export economies.
As with all conferences, it’s not in the scheduled forums, but rather the closed side-bar meetings, where the real action takes place. As revealed in the leaked documents now in BBC’s possession, Adnoc and Masdar have developed closed-meeting talking points for more than two dozen countries. One involves securing Brazilian government assistance and endorsement of Adnoc’s acquisition of Braskern, the largest oil and gas processing company in Latin America.
Another revelation was the UAE's assurance that there will be no reduction of liquid national gas exports to Germany. Hosting a conference for reduction of fossil fuels, while promising no reduction in exports, is contradictory.
COP 28’s UAE team is now using the “admit nothing/deny everything” strategy when challenged about using the summit to promote their country’s own interests. Also now being denied is the fact that UAE staff members were told to include Adnoc and Masdar talking points in briefing notes.
Further on the Masdar front, twenty countries are slated for sales pitches concerning renewable energy. Even Dr. Jaber is not above the influence of the UAE’s royal families. The leaked documents include instructions he received to “seek government support” of the United Kingdom to double the size of a wind farm. It is no coincidence that this wind farm in Norfolk is partially owned by Masdar, and in turn the UAE.
UAE’s racketeering, influence, and corrupt organization involvement in COP 28 is massive. These leaked documents must be just a fraction of what can certainly exist. Anybody who dares to report this from inside the UAE will most surely be imprisoned. Per UAE law, that rule clearly applies to foreign reporters.
Even before King Charles’ opening comments, confidence in COP 28 was lost. This confidence was not lost due to the leaked documents exposed by the BBC. It’s lost because of the lack of ethics of a corrupt government determined to do whatever it desires to serve its own interests.