Through the Seven Climes / Yedi İklim Boyunca

The UN-sponsored global climate talks have had a tough time over the past years. Ever since the landmark Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rises to 1.5°C was agreed on at COP21 in 2015, signatories have had to contend with the awkward fact that global CO₂ emissions have only increased since the Agreement was signed. The Global Carbon Project now estimates that there is a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5C consistently in about seven years.

With little to show for in terms of real, science-based action on climate, its no wonder that as time goes on the COP talks have degraded into a series of more or less zany sideshows looking to distract rather than inform and coordinate, with leaders desperate to present any non-binding statement as progress.

Global CO₂ emissions have only increased since the Paris Agreement was signed. The Global Carbon Project now estimates that there is a 50 per cent chance global warming will exceed 1.5C consistently in about seven years.

At COP26 in 2021, twenty countries signed up to the Glasgow Statement, pledging to end new direct public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022. Less than two years later, nearly half of them, including the US, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, have either broken this promise or passed legislation with loopholes to bypass it.

In lieu of actually curbing CO₂ emissions, which few big polluters had any appetite for, COP26’s big selling point was a pledge for rich countries to provide $100bn a year to less wealthy ones to finance climate adaptation. At best, only half of this has materialised, and at worst only 20-25%.

The following COP was held in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, at which point both media and activist attention switched from climate change and energy concerns to the fact that COP was being held in one of the most aggressive police states in the Middle East, led by a former army general who seized power in a regionally-backed coup. On the eve of COP27, Egypt held 60,000 political prisoners in its notoriously violent and brutal prisons. Egypt arrested at least 67 activists, most domestic but some international, ahead of the summit.

Of the $100bn a year pledged to finance climate adaptation at COP26, at best, only half of this has materialised, and at worst only 20-25%.

Once the ceremonies started, representatives of indigenous communities and climate activists alike complained that they were shut out from talks and that protests were limited to ‘designated areas’ while the red carpet was rolled out for energy companies and PR consultancies. Tangible climate commitments were thin on the ground.

The hosts of COP28, left to right: Sultan Al Jaber, chair of Adnoc and president of COP28; Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi; Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President of the UAE and ruler of Dubai; and Abdullah bin Zayed, Foreign Minister and brother of President Mohammed bin Zayed

With COP28 arriving in Dubai in 2023, this trajectory of empty words and greenwashing concerns has reached its apotheosis. The controversies are well-documented: the United Arab Emirates is the 8th largest oil producer in the world. The president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, is the chair of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Adnoc. Leaked briefing documents show that the UAE intended to use COP as an opportunity to strike energy deals with 15 countries, including plans to mention to Chinese counterparts that Adnoc is “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG [liquefied natural gas] opportunities” in Mozambique, Canada and Australia.

At an event on women’s role in the climate crisis, Al Jaber told Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: “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 1.5°C… show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.”

The president of COP28, Sultan Al Jaber, is the chair of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Adnoc. Leaked briefing documents show that the UAE intended to use COP as an opportunity to strike energy deals.

Discussions of climate policy were put on hold in the British press when King Charles decided to wear a tie with the Greek flag on it for his opening address at COP28. The UK PM, Rishi Sunak, had just had a public row with his Greek counterpart over the return of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ – sculptures that the British had taken from the Parthenon in Athens some two hundred years ago. This predictably led to media speculation over the hidden meaning of the king’s sartorial choices, with the climate crisis taking a back seat for the afternoon. Amidst the chaotic proceedings of this year’s COP, it appeared as if it wasn’t just the Greeks who had lost their marbles.

King Charles III and his controversial tie

So, what is one to make of this year’s COP? Is it the story of the international community failing take meaningful action on the climate crisis? Is it the story of oil and gas majors hijacking the climate agenda to feed global dependency on fossil fuels? Or is it about King Charles’ tie and the legacies of imperial plunder?

All of these narratives are true in their own right. But what foreign affairs coverage often lacks is a deeper understanding of local context – asking why certain actors behave the way they do, rather than what these actions might mean for Western audiences.

From the perspective of UAE leadership, COP is akin to the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics, or Davos – a chance broadcast legitimacy, credibility, and curry favour with Western-led alliance networks.

For the UAE, hosting COP is not about climate; it is not primarily about oil and gas sales, and it is not primarily about an oil producer hijacking and derailing critical discussions over climate change and the environment. From the perspective of UAE leadership, COP is akin to the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics, or Davos – a chance broadcast legitimacy, credibility, and curry favour with Western-led alliance networks.

Contrary to popular perception, the UAE is not just a second-rate petro-state, nor is it just Dubai. The UAE is, in fact, one of the most active political players in the Middle East, aggressively willing to enforce its desired political order abroad. Its leader, Mohammed bin Zayed, was once called “the most powerful Arab ruler” by the New York Times.

Since the 2015 Saudi-led coalition’s intervention in Yemen, the UAE has played a leading role in supporting the separatist Southern Transition Council in order to bolsters its position along strategic shipping routes in the Red Sea. In Yemen, the UAE ran a system of secret prisons that Amnesty International suspects ‘amount to war crimes’. Militias trained and funded by the UAE were given Western-bought weapons, which were directly linked to war crimes against civilians.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and ruler of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi

Since the fall of Gaddafi in Libya, the UAE has supported the country’s eastern warlord, Khalifa Haftar, also found liable for war crimes, by brazenly flaunting a UN arms embargo in an ultimately failed attempt to help Haftar take over Libya’s capital Tripoli. Sudan is currently embroiled in a bitter conflict between the Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the leader of the army and de facto ruler of the country, and Hemedti, a regional militia leader who recently moved to try and seize power. So far, 5,000 civilians have died, more than 12,000 have been injured, and over 5.7 million people have been forcibly displaced. Hemedti has been supported by the UAE since at least 2019.

For decades, most Arab leaders had banked on their alliance with the US to save them when push came to shove, but this was bitterly proven to be a false hope during the Arab Spring in 2011.

This is only a partial list of the UAE’s efforts to reshape the Middle East. The common throughline is that Mohammed bin Zayed and the UAE have one overriding security concern that they see as existential to their country, which dictates both their domestic and foreign policy: political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.

During the Arab spring in 2011, the UAE saw autocracies in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya toppled; Syria descended into a bloody civil war, while Saudi Arabia and Bahrain faced mass protests and popular mobilisation on the streets. For decades, most Arab leaders had banked on their alliance with the US to save them when push came to shove, but this was bitterly proven to be a false hope: Obama was of the opinion that Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak had to go, and actively sought the removal of Gaddafi in Libya. The UAE and Mohammed bin Zayed himself allegedly experienced a coup attempt from within the Abu Dhabi royal family. Simply put, bin Zayed and his allies saw themselves effectively as the last men standing strong in a sea of revolution.

Mohammed bin Zayed and the UAE have one overriding security concern that they see as existential to their country, which dictates both their domestic and foreign policy: political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Already in 2007, according to leaked American diplomatic cables, bin Zayed believed that 80 percent of his soldiers would answer the call of “some holy man in Mecca” rather than him. In the same cables, he expressed the belief that any attempts to democratise the region would lead to Islamism. Thus the need for counterrevolution; in 2013 the UAE and Saudi Arabia funded and helped organise the coup in Egypt that brought general (and COP27 host) Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

In Yemen, the UAE hired American and Israeli mercenaries to assassinate leaders of the local Muslim Brotherhood. In Libya, Haftar stands a more secular counter to the Turkish-backed and Brotherhood-leaning government in Tripoli. In Sudan, Hemedti has proven himself willing to present himself as an anti-Islamist force: according to Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, “[t]he Hemedti social media pages are being managed from the UAE and Hemedti is copying many UAE narratives about Islamism, basically equating Burhan with political Islamism after delegitimising him.” The UAE was also behind an alleged coup attempt in Tunisia to prevent a pro-Brotherhood party getting too powerful, and bin Zayed was the driving force behind the three-and-a-half year blockade of Qatar, the region’s main financial backer of Islamist political parties.

Civilians fleeing war in Sudan, near the border crossing point in Renk County, South Sudan May 1, 2023. REUTERS/Jok Solomun

This is the deeper, regional context in which COP28 is taking place. The UAE needs tacit Western acceptance, if not direct backing, to continue on its geopolitical ambitions or to at least distract from them in the Western public’s mind (the UAE’s politics are much better known in the Arab world). Consider how differently Western publics perceive Saudi Arabia and the UAE – the former is equated with extremely conservative interpretations of Islam, beheadings, and dismembered journalists. The UAE, despite having its own international assasination programme as violent as the one that killed Jamal Khashoggi, is hardly thought of at all. And if it is, it is mostly associated with the apolitical consumerist wonderland of Dubai.

The UAE needs tacit Western acceptance, if not direct backing, to continue on its geopolitical ambitions or to at least distract from them in the Western publics mind.

COP28 is only the latest chapter in bin Zayed’s soft power push. In 2008, the Abu Dhabi United Group bought Manchester City FC; the holding group and Man City are run by bin Zayed’s brother, Sheikh Mansour. The Dubai-based Emirates Group has naming rights to Arsenal football stadium in London; the Emirates and Etihad luxury airlines, and the city of Dubai itself are all examples of this.

More recently in 2019 the UAE hosted ‘The Year of Tolerance’, inviting international (and especially American) grandees to give speeches on regional politics. Former US Defence Secretary James Mattis, who had received $242,000 in annual fees from the UAE and worked as an unpaid advisor to bin Zayed, stated: “It’s the Year of Tolerance. How many countries in the world right now are having a year of tolerance… You are an example.”

Ahmed Mansoor, one of the most prominent Emirati human rights defenders and widely considered ‘the last man standing’ before his arrest in March 2017. He is currently held at Al-Razeen prison, Abu Dhabi.

Ironically, the UAE has possibly one of the highest rates of political prisoners per capita in the world, but this cannot be reliably confirmed because international human rights bodies find it next to impossible to get access to information from the country. One internationally respected human rights researcher told me that the UAE is “a black box: we simply do not know what happens there, because everyone is either in prison or too afraid to speak to us.” Following the Year of Tolerance the UAE hosted Expo 2020 Dubai, which was described by Human Rights Watch as an attempt by the UAE to ‘whitewash its image and obscure crackdowns on dissent, freedom of expression.‘

The UAE has possibly one of the highest rates of political prisoners per capita in the world, but this cannot be reliably confirmed because international human rights bodies find it next to impossible to get access to information from the country.

Despite gripes from international human rights organisations, the rewards to be gained from the UAE’s brand of PR activity are not insignificant: bin Zayed secured the Trump administration’s approval for his ally Khalifa Haftar in Libya, the Biden administration has approved arms sales worth $2.2bn to the UAE, and the US is currently reaching out to the Emiratis in order to try and contain the violence in Sudan. When commenting on another recent spate of US arms sales to the UAE (this time to bolster Emirati capacity in Yemen amidst increasing fallout from the war in Gaza), the Pentagon stated that “The UAE is a vital US partner for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East.“

Delegates walk at COP28 in Dubai, UAE, December 8, 2023. REUTERS/Thaier Al Sudani

The sense that the UAE, a major player and driving force in many of the region’s most long-standing conflicts, is a ‘vital partner’ to the West in a tough neighbourhood is echoed in the logic of allowing an oil major to host COP. “By inviting the oil and gas industry to participate in the conversation, we can create pragmatic solutions to addressing global energy poverty while minimizing our environmental impact,” opined David Pursell, Executive Vice President at the Texas-based Apache Corporation that conducts oil and gas exploration.

In many ways, COP itself has come to resemble Dubai: big, brash, extremely commercialised, and highly politicised while attempting to maintain a veneer of political neutrality. After Glasgow, Sharm el-Sheikh, The Year of Tolerance, and Expo 2020, COP28 exemplifies the hollowness of the great mirages that underpinned global politics in the post-Cold War world: that limitless economic growth is possible, and that limitless free markets will bring about limitless democracy and limitless peace.

In many ways, COP itself has come to resemble Dubai: big, brash, extremely commercialised, and highly politicised while attempting to maintain a veneer of political neutrality.

These very same themes will be continued at COP29, to be held in Azerbaijan in 2024. Like the UAE, Azerbaijan is a major fossil-fuel producing country, and is ruled by an autocrat. Like the UAE, it has recently begun to assert its power in a region where the former hegemon, Russia, is retreating. With Azerbaijan this takes the form of renewed war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabagh, an area that the two countries both lay claim to and fought over bitterly in the 1990s during the breakup of the Soviet Union, with ethnic cleansing and war crimes committed by both sides.

While the status quo over Nagorno-Karabagh held for nearly three decades, in 2020 Azerbaijan (with generous Turkish military assistance) was able to seize back significant portions of the territory, and in October 2023 it was able to complete its conquest. Although under international law the land belongs to Azerbaijan, Azeri victory is not without controversy: most of the local ethnic Armenian population has fled, there is strong evidence of human rights violations in relation to the conflict, and Armenian diaspora groups in the US and France have tried to keep the conflict in Nagorno-Karabagh in the news. Like the UAE, in addition to promoting its oil and gas interests, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev will be keen to use the pomp and fanfare of COP to secure international recognition and legitimacy for his position in Nagorno-Karabagh.

Whether or not Adnoc is able to secure new business at COP28 is besides the point. By having COP hosted in Dubai, the UAE has won a prize more valuable than any oil deal: reassurance that as long as its able to deliver a good spectacle, its Western partners will be too distracted to look behind the curtains to see how the show is run.

Most of the news surrounding the UAE’s hosting of COP has correctly focussed on the egregious conflicts of interest involving Al Jaber, the UAE’s state oil company Adnoc, and the oil-producing UAE more generally hosting global negotiations on climate action. But in many ways, whether or not Adnoc is able to secure any new business at COP28 is besides the point. By merely having COP hosted in Dubai, the UAE has won a prize more valuable than any oil deal: reassurance that as long as its able to deliver a good spectacle, its Western partners will be too distracted to look behind the curtains to see how the show is run.