DUBAI: Opec Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais on Monday accused the International Energy Agency (IEA) of vilifying the oil and gas industry, in the latest clash between the groups over climate policy.

Al Ghais was referring to a note published by the West’s energy watchdog that stated the fossil fuel industry was facing a “moment of truth” where producers had to choose between deepening the climate crisis or shifting to clean energy.

“This presents an extremely narrow framing of challenges before us, and perhaps expediently plays down such issues as energy security, energy access and energy affordability,” Al Ghais said. “It also unjustly vilifies the industry as being behind the climate crisis.”

The IEA, in a post on its website, stated, “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals which means letting go of ‘the illusion’ that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution.”

Oil deals

Some leaked briefing notes, which were prepared by the UAE’s COP28 team for summit president Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and obtained by journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) working alongside BBC, claimed the UAE planned to exploit meetings with foreign governments, arranged due to its COP28 hosting role, to strike fossil fuel deals.

Leaked “talking points” prepared for a meeting with China said that ADNOC, the UAE’s state oil company, was “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG opportunities” in Mozambi­que, Canada and Australia.

The documents obtained by BBC showed the UAE prepared talking points for meetings with 20 countries on commercial opportunities for state renewable energy company Masdar.

A COP28 spokesperson said the documents “are inaccurate and were not used by COP28 in meetings. It is extremely disappointing to see the BBC use unverified documents in their reporting.”

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2023