Exclusive: UAE’s Sultan Al Jaber says phase-out of coal, oil and gas would take world ‘back into caves’

The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is “no science” indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal.

Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development “unless you want to take the world back into caves”.

The comments were “incredibly concerning” and “verging on climate denial”, scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

  • Norgur@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I mean, yeah, science doesn’t say “we need to absolutely phase out fossil fuels”, it says “we need to cut back on greenhouse gases”, so we could cut back everything else to achieve that and make mister sultan guy happy and allow him to create another artificial peninsula in the shape of a middle finger this time or whatever… Oooooor, we could cut back on fossil fuels because that’s actually the easiest option. Sorry if my wish for my son to have a planet with a working ecosystem to live on isn’t overriden by your wish for a massive gold Ferrari or whatever you Islamic moneybags like to buy these days…