Mr Jaber is also a minister in the UAE and has served two tenures as its climate envoy. The appointment has proven controversial with many critics pointing to the conflict of interest inherent in leading one of the world’s biggest oil extraction companies while chairing a climate change conference. Mr Jaber’s vocal stance on substantively increasing ADNOC’s oil output by 2030 is unlikely to help still criticism.

Despite the fact that an agreement on loss and damage was reached during COP27, the conference was widely criticised for the lack of progress on reducing emissions targets to help ensure that global temperature increases are limited to 1.5°C. The failure to include language around the phasing out of fossil fuels and the softening of the agreement language around the “phasing down” of coal has been particularly poorly received by environmental activists and critics.

It is therefore not difficult to see why those stakeholders would consider the appointment of someone who was open about his intent to substantially increase fossil fuel production as COP28 president with some scepticism.

It is very clear that the current nationally determined contribution (NDC) emissions levels need to decline significantly in order for there to be any chance of limiting warming to desired levels and that almost certainly will require reductions in the use of fossil fuels. It is therefore not difficult to see why those stakeholders would consider the appointment of someone who was open about his intent to substantially increase fossil fuel production as COP28 president with some scepticism.

The COP28 agenda will almost certainly include further work (and further controversy) on loss and damage and finance. Interestingly it will also signal the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake, a process intended to assess progress towards the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This process is currently in its technical assessment phase. Once complete the stocktake will provide some tangible insight into how far off the intended course of action the global community is and what is needed to actually meet the objectives set out in the Paris Agreement and reaffirmed or strengthened since.