BRUSSELS: Sultan Al Jaber, Emirates oil executive and president of the most important climate summit since the Paris Agreement in 2015, has a quick answer when asked when the world will stop burning fossil fuels: when there’s enough clean energy to replace them.

“We cannot shut down the energy system of today before we build the new energy system of tomorrow that is equipped with zero-carbon emission sources,” said Jaber, head of the United Arab Emirates national oil company ADNOC and head of the upcoming COP28 climate summit.

“We don’t want to create an energy crisis.” With global temperatures hitting record highs last week and countries buffeted by floods, storms and crop-withering heatwaves, the world remains far off track to meet its climate goals.

But “I don’t have a magic (wand)” as to when that will happen, he said in Brussels, after outlining his action plan and goals for the year-end summit to ministers from European Union nations and China.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2023