OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais said on Tuesday that representatives of the oil industry and OPEC will attend next month’s COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
“The oil industry will be at the COP and we will be there,” Al Ghais said at an energy event in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to Reuters.
“The secretary general of OPEC will also attend the climate summit,” he said.
“I hope all voices will be at the table at COP28,” Al Ghais said.
The president-elect of COP28 is Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, minister of industry and high technology of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and group CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the largest national oil companies.
Speaking at the ADIPEC energy conference in Abu Dhabi last week, Al Jaber called on the oil and gas industry to play a critical role in advancing decarbonization and the energy transition.
“This industry can and must help drive the solutions. For too long, this industry has been seen as part of the problem, not doing enough, and in some cases even blocking progress,” Al Jaber said at the opening of the energy conference.
“This is your opportunity to show the world that you are, in fact, central to the solution,” he added.
For his part, OPEC’s Al Ghais wrote in OPEC’s annual World Oil Outlook, released this week, that “calls to halt investment in new oil projects are misguided and could lead to energy and economic chaos.”
“History is replete with examples of turmoil that should serve as a warning of what happens when policymakers fail to recognize the interwoven complexities of energy,” Al Ghais said.
To ensure market stability and avoid energy and economic disruptions, the world will need $14trn in cumulative investment in the oil sector by 2045, OPEC said in the report, raising its long-term oil demand forecast to 116m b/d in 2045.