United Arab Emirates Aims To Go Green While Still Producing Oil

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has reiterated it’s commitment to environmental sustainability, on the one hand, and to continuing oil production, on the other, at an address by the country’s climate change envoy.

Speaking at the opening event for the first-ever UN Middle East and North Africa Climate Week, Dr. Sultan Al Jaber said that the UAE was the first country to sign the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, the first to announce the goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and host to the world’s biggest single solar field.

The country stopped flaring (burning natural gas from oil extraction) 30 years ago, he added, radically slashed methane emissions 20 years ago, and began capturing climate-warming carbon dioxide long before people started talking about it.

At the same time, “we can’t just switch off the energy system, as current events show,” he said, referring to the rising price of oil brought on by the Russian invasion of Ukraine alongside restricted supply in the face of a rapid uptick in consumer demand in the COVID era.

Weaning the world off hydrocarbons “will be gradual, and needs sober planning,” Al Jaber said. “It cannot be rushed.” The push to reduce hydrocarbons was having an impact on those who were most vulnerable, he added, noting that it is important to keep investing in low-cost, low carbon energy.

Alongside renewable energy, the world needs nuclear energy, gas, and oil from places where the extraction causes lower carbon emissions, such as the UAE and the MENA region.