ADNOC Drilling, the company specialized in oil and gas extraction of the ADNOC group (Abu Dhabi National Oil Company), presented on Monday, February 13, the balance of activities for 2022, the year in which it achieved income of 2,670 million dollars (2,484 million euros) from the sale of hydrocarbons and net profits of 802 million dollars (746 million euros), a record in the history of this state-owned company from the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, the company announced on Monday its growth plans in hydrocarbon exploitation on the mainland and in the submarine subsoil, with a 20% increase in revenue by 2023.
ADNOC Drilling’s income statement and future plans are worthy of occupying a space in the Economics pages of specialized publications but are also of general interest because the president of this subsidiary, and CEO of the ADNOC group, is Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber; person who in turn has been appointed president of the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP 28) to be held from November 30 to December 12 of this year in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As will be recalled, the appointment of the president of each of these climate summits corresponds to the host country, in this case the UAE.
After the announcement of the appointment of Ahmed Al Jaber as president of COP28, at the end of January, almost 500 entities from various countries sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, António Guterrez, denouncing that this nomination represents “a threat to the legitimacy and to the effectiveness of COP28”. “If we have any hope of tackling the climate crisis, all climate conferences must be far from the influence that the fossil fuel industry can exert,” denounced the signatory groups.
Now, after the presentation of the results of ADNOC Drilling, Aministia International (one of the signatories of the letter addressed to Guterrez) has reiterated and sharpened the criticism against the president designated for COP 28.
Marta Schaaf, Director of Amnesty International’s Climate Programme, said: “Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of ADNOC, one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, plans to increase the group’s fossil fuel production, and this is totally incompatible with his role as president-designate of COP 28.
“Ahmed Al Jaber cannot be an honest broker in climate talks when the company he runs plans to cause further damage to the climate,” Schaaf said in an official note released by Amnesty International.
The UAE government has defended the suitability of Ahmed Al Jaber for the position of president of COP 28, indicating that he is a “defender of renewable energies” (he also chairs the state-owned renewable energy company Masdar) and of “the fight against change climate” (he has been a special delegate of his country in other international meetings on climate).
Amnesty International, on the other hand, considers that the “double role” of Ahmed Al Jaber “is an obvious conflict of interest that will contribute to a greater climate disaster and the development of human rights violations.”
