Al Gore criticizes ‘capture’ of the UN climate agenda – 09/15/2023 – Environment

Former US Vice President and climate activist Al Gore has criticized the fossil fuel industry’s “capture” of global UN climate change negotiations “to a disturbing degree”.

He said it is “time to abandon the misleading assumption” that oil and gas companies and petrostates are “bona fide participants” in the UN process culminating in a summit to be held in the United Arab Emirates this year. , COP28.

Most of the industry wanted to “block, delay and prevent anything that would reduce the sale and burning of fossil fuels,” Gore added.

“It’s simply not realistic to believe that they’re going to take the lead in resolving this crisis,” he said, looking ahead to a new report on sustainable investing from Generation Investment Management, where he is co-founder and president.

“They captured the UN process to a disturbing degree, even putting the CEO of one of the biggest oil companies in the world as president of COP28,” he said, referring to the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber, the company’s chief executive. Abu Dhabi National Petroleum, as designated president of COP28.

Gore’s view contrasts with that of US climate envoy John Kerry, who has backed industry executives’ participation in the COP28 climate summit in Dubai later this year as necessary to effect change.

Kerry recently said he was calling on executives from major players in the energy sector, as major contributors to climate change, to attend COP28 with concrete plans to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

But Gore noted that at the previous COP27, in Egypt, the number of delegates from the fossil fuel industry was greater than the number of delegates from the ten countries most affected by climate change.

He said reform of the UN climate negotiations process is needed, arguing that the current system that allows a single country to veto a proposal, even if a majority supports the action, is hindering global progress.

“It’s a bit absurd that the world has to ask Saudi Arabia for permission to talk about solutions to the climate crisis,” he said.

However, Gore, who won an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize for his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth” about global warming, was optimistic that the world had “finally” reached a “point of change.” political inflection”, when certain countries were taking “significant steps forward” to solve the climate crisis.

This included historic US$369 billion climate action through the Inflation Reduction Act, the European Union’s Green Deal and its planned carbon tax, as well as changes in political leadership in laggard countries like Australia and the Brazil.

Gore said he had “scars” from the political backlash against carbon taxes, which aim to put a cost on emissions, after efforts to adopt a type of carbon tax under Bill Clinton were rejected.

“Since that time, at least in the US, it has been considered impossible to pass one. However, some things are changing,” he said. The implementation of Europe’s carbon border adjustment mechanism from next month, which imposes a carbon tax on carbon-intensive imports, was a “very hopeful sign”, he said.

“I think it’s likely to spread and could eventually be a way to finally have a more global carbon pricing approach,” he said.

Generation’s report predicts that in just “a few years” wind and solar will begin to meet all new energy demand, with increased deployment of heat pumps and a huge increase in electric vehicle sales.

“I’m more optimistic than ever,” Gore said. “But with the caveat that I am still very aware of the difficulty of the challenges that remain.”