The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is working hard to sell sustainable development and green energy as the country prepares to host COP28 later this year. The UAE is spending millions to pump up its green cred, while simultaneously planning massive increases in oil and gas production.
The UAE’s efforts to position itself as a climate leader and global clean energy advocate are at odds with its core activities. Hydrocarbon production is antithetical to their rebranding efforts. There is no reconciling their ambitious climate commitments and their plans to increase oil and gas production.
The UAE’s public relations efforts are consistent with the fossil fuel disinformation playbook. The UAE uses what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as “bogus ‘net-zero’ pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion”. A practice that Guterres calls “reprehensible”.
A similar practice has been exposed in the U.S. As reported by CNN, a year-long House Oversight Committee investigation on climate disinformation concluded the fossil fuel industry feigns support for climate action as a pretext to keep producing emissions-intensive energy. According to Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, the oil industry is prioritizing profits over planetary health by “posturing on climate issues while avoiding real commitments” to reduce emissions. “The industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come,” she said.
The fossil fuel industry’s lobbying, public relations, and greenwashing efforts are designed to distract the public from plans to increase oil and gas extraction. These efforts tend to focus on the oxymoron of clean fossil fuels while downplaying their negative impacts.
Fossil fuels are the leading cause of climate change. According to the UN, fossil fuels account for three-quarters of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and nearly 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
The UAE is a petrostate that produced 2,954,000 barrels of oil per day in 2022. The country is the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, and it has the seventh-largest oil reserves. The desert kingdom has consistently increased crude oil production and its investments in exploration have yielded major finds that will significantly increase the UAE’s production capacity.
The UAE has spent millions to obscure the fact that the country is fundamentally at odds with climate action. Achieving net zero emissions by mid-century precludes new oil and gas projects. To control the narrative, both the UAE and ADNOC, have invested in public relations and lobbying to shape public opinion and influence policy decisions. In 2017 ADNOC launched a two-tiered advertising campaign celebrating the importance of fossil fuels and touting the company’s unrealized emissions reduction efforts.
As reported by The Guardian, “filings with the U.S. Department of Justice show the UAE contacted media organizations in order to boost the perception of its action on climate issues”. They paid the lobbying firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, $2.85 million to peddle influence with American lawmakers. The UAE also hired three PR strategists to help influence and shape opinion. In total, the UAE has spent more than $10 million on American lobbying and public relations contracts.
The UAE has successfully used spin masters to influence climate policies in the past. In 2017, leaked emails suggest that the UAE lobbied against an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) proposal to limit emissions from aviation. The UAE allegedly opposed the adoption of paragraph 15 of ICAO resolution A37-19 which would have required states to reduce aviation emissions. Although the UAE’s Etihad Airways are the first Gulf airline to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, this effort depends almost entirely on yet unrealized carbon offsets.
The fossil fuel industry’s promises to reduce emissions and their support for clean energy are a ruse. This is part of a network of greenwashing initiatives that are designed to confuse the public and slow any efforts to stymie the growth of hydrocarbons.
As part of the UAE’s efforts to extoll its climate efforts they are aggressively selling their support for clean power, however, a measure of sustainable energy known as the Energy Trilemma Index indicates that the UAE has steadily declined in recent years. The UAE’s token investments in green energy initiatives like hydrogen may be likened to what the House Oversight Committee investigation described as a “long-running greenwashing campaign”. The fossil fuel industry is not honoring its promises to scale back production and its investments in clean energy are being dwarfed by its investments in new hydrocarbon projects.
The greenwashing of the oil and gas industry has been widely exposed. “This should be the last nail in the coffin of the oil industry’s green claims,” Keith Stewart, with Greenpeace Canada, told CBC News. “Even as Big Oil rakes in record profits, they are delaying action on the climate crisis to make a few extra bucks while people and ecosystems pay the costs in ever more extreme weather, wildfires, drought and flooding.”
While they make claims about reducing their ‘carbon intensity’ and increasing their reliance on ‘low carbon solutions’ this is greenwashing. There is no way around the fact that their core activity is synonymous with emissions.
The fact that the UAE is about to host this year’s climate conference is a travesty. What we need from COP28 is a science-based pathway to eliminate fossil fuels. No amount of spin, public relations, or greenwashing can obscure the fact that hydrocarbons are incompatible with climate action.
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