Al Gore this week traveled to Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, to launch a rude climate tirade against his host nation, the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE is currently hosting the 28th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP28) annual climate conference. The UAE also produces the seventh most amount of oil in the world. Gore ripped into the UAE for its carbon dioxide emissions, while also saying fossil fuel entities should not be allowed a seat at the table while the UN discusses carbon dioxide emissions.
UAE Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber is serving as the president of the current UN conference. Al-Jaber is also chairman of Masdar, a UAE state-owned renewable energy company, while also serving as CEO of the Abu Dhabi national oil company. Many prominent climate activists have criticized COP28 for having someone with ties to oil production as president of the conference.
“They are abusing the public’s trust by naming the CEO of one of the largest and least responsible oil companies in the world as head of the COP,” Gore said Sunday while in the host country.
In a Sunday presentation at the COP, Gore emphasized that the UAE’s carbon dioxide emissions rose 7 percent during the post-COVID global economic recovery of 2022, versus a 1.5 percent increase in emissions globally. Gore failed to mention that UAE emissions declined between 2016 and 2019, even while global emissions increased nearly 4 percent.
Gore’s comments illustrate climate activists’ constant villanization of conventional energy producers. Even with more wind and solar power coming online during recent years, all nations utilize and require varying amounts of oil, natural gas, and coal. Rather than recognizing and working for ways to reduce emissions within this reality, Gore and many climate activists attack conventional energy producers for meeting global energy needs and global energy demand.
Photo of Al Gore by JD Lasica. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
