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

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.

  • SnuggleSnail@ani.social
    16·
    1 year ago

    Why the twist into xenophobia in the end? The comment could have been 100% on point. Now it’s like Hitler being vegan - nice, but overshadowed by other stuff.

      • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
        8·
        1 year ago

        As opposed to European or American billionaires? Why are you going out of your way to defend a racist comment?

        • Maggoty@lemmy.world
          2·
          1 year ago

          I’m not sure about European ones but in North America they tend to go for understatement and philanthropic PR to keep the public off their back. The only reason I know what they go for in the middle east is studying the area. It’s not racist to point out general tendencies in culture. No one here is accusing them of criminal excess or bad character, just gaudiness. Which you can easily see in Dubai, UAE, or SA. It’s literally on display.

          Also, it’s not a Muslim thing or an everyone in the region thing. It’s specific to a socioeconomic group. Like saying wealthy people prefer to buy cars 50k and up from Volvo, BMW, Audi, and Rolls Royce. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s easily observable.

        • Norgur@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          Oh, no one is saying that other moneybags are any different. I bitch about them, too. This time, I was bitching about the moneybags who very insistently call themselves Islamic, so I called them that as well. Especially since they justify a lot of their power and oppressive rules (against women, LGBTQ, etc) with their faith.

          Yet I fail to see how calling those oil oligarch types in Saudi Arabia “Islamic moneybags” would say anything about any other Moslem on this planet, which would make the comment racist.

          If.there is some language thing I’ve messed up, please tell me, as I’m not a native speaker (something that tends to be blissfully ignored so often when someone is flat out called a.racist or whatever)

          • Maggoty@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 year ago

            You’re fine. People are just on edge because Israel is using islamophobic rhetoric to justify bombing hospitals right now.

    • Norgur@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      I replied below with an explanation. I’m not aware of any way my comment could be seen as applying to any other type of person than Saudi Billionaire Oligarchs, so please tell me.if there is some language thing that would make you think my comment could be seen as derogatory to any other person. I’m not a native speaker, so there might be just a language issue.

      As for your comparison: that’s not fitting now, is it. Hitler being vegan (he wasn’t, he was vegetarian) is a minor detail that gets overshadowed by the main course which is mass murder and war.

      My comment is the other way around at best. Let’s not compare the crimes of Adolf Hitler to some bloke on the internet messing up his wording. That’s disrespectful to the people Hitler and his dick face cronies made suffer for no fucking reason.