. What’s the problem with that, he asks, rears out of the desert like a housing estate designed by Disney in a fever dream. Built for the Expo 2020 global fair, identikit skyscrapers surround a vast dome, with a sprinkling of giant steel-and-silicon mushrooms stretching towards the blinding sun. There is a forest of glass needles, a “surreal water feature” like a mini Niagara Falls in black marble, a giant metal falcon and sculptures of running horses.
I travelled the world and made it a point to see even those who attack me: ‘Guys, I’m here to listen. Tell me. Help me’ Did they tell him to resign? “I stood my ground, when I thought, OK, I know what I’m talking about.” Can he understand why people might question the idea of a fossil fuel executive in charge of climate talks? He smiles at me, eyes wide behind large, expensive-looking glasses. “Never in history has a Cop president confronted the oil industry, let alone the fact that he’s a CEO of an oil company,” he tells me.
This is not exactly reassuring, from the man charged with leading the planet to safety. “My focus is to phase out emissions from everything. Regardless of where it comes from.” At what point will we have phased out fossil fuels? “You and I and no one on Earth knows the answer to this question. It all depends on whether we get the world to unite on a very serious accelerated programme of decarbonisation across the board.”
Al Jaber’s fluent rhetoric serves to obscure a single obdurate fact: the world cannot go on with a burgeoning fossil fuel industry., and the petro-states they prop up, must refocus themselves on renewable energy, or go out of business. Or we will fry.ust a few miles from the techno-architectural wonders of Expo City stands a remarkable structure.
People familiar with the top echelons of UAE society tell me it is unusual for someone from a relatively obscure background to be chosen to head up anything major by the government, let alone such high-profile gigs as the national oil company, the country’s single most important business.