UN climate change summit boss 'completely divorced from reality'

Mr al-Jaber, whose insistence flies in the face of the overwhelming scientific consensus, claimed that phasing out fossil fuels would “take the world back into caves”.

He was repeatedly challenged by Ms Robinson, who chairs the Elders group made up of former global leaders. She alluded to the contentious event when speaking at the UCC Sustainable Futures forum last week.

Dismissing Ms Robinson’s demand that fossil fuels be phased out, Mr al-Jaber said: “I’m not in any way signing up to any discussion that is alarmist. There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.” Teresa Anderson, from ActionAid International, said that Mr al-Jaber’s comments “are completely divorced from the reality of hundreds of millions of people on the frontline of climate catastrophe”.

“Communities whose lives are already being destroyed by floods, droughts, and cyclones have a different view on whether a fossil-fuelled future represents progress or poverty.

“With climate disasters worsening with each year, his comments fly in the face of all science and offer up another lifeline for climate-wrecking fossil fuel industries,” he said.

The global policy institute, Climate Analytics chief executive Bill Hare, said Mr al-Jaber’s comments “verge on climate denial” and that the science is clear on the need to phase out fossil fuels.

The position of Mr al-Jaber heading Cop28 has for months been criticised by scientists and environmental organisations because of his fossil fuel ties. He is the head of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, the 12th largest oil-producing firm in the world.

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan, who will fly home from Dubai for a confidence vote in justice minister Helen McEntee this week before flying back out again, said carbon abatement measures cannot be used “as a cover for unsustainable fossil fuel expansion”.

Carbon capture and storage have been touted by Mr Ryan as viable methods to tackle emissions, even though the technology is currently considered to be too cumbersome and implausible by the International Energy Agency, which said on the eve of Cop28 that is it an “illusion” that it will save the day.

Speaking before Mr al-Jaber’s comments were revealed, Mr Ryan said that there is “enough oil and gas discovered already to burn the planet”.

“The idea that we’re going to have a massive expansion of fossil fuels, of new oil fields, new gas discoveries, is not aligned with the 1.5C limit,” he said in Dubai.