Fighting Climate Change Requires All Hands On Deck
That’s why Dr. Sultan Al Jaber is the right person to preside over the upcoming UN climate summit.
The man for the moment.
Photographer: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images
In politics, it’s easy to shake a fist. It’s harder to shake a hand. But more progress is made through cooperation than conflict. That truth is worth bearing in mind as the latest dust-up over the next UN climate conference unfolds.
Recently, a group of elected officials from the US and Europe signed a letter demanding the removal of Dr. Sultan Al Jaber as the president-designate of this fall’s UN climate convening, COP28, in the United Arab Emirates. Many signers of the letter, who included some of the most far-left members of Congress, also opposed the selection of the UAE as the host country for COP28. How can a climate conference, they argued, take place in an oil-producing state? The answer is: We need oil producers at the table — including the US, which is the largest oil producer in the world. And the UAE would not be the first oil-rich nation to host a COP.