UAE should give oil and gas players bigger role at COP28, panellist says

[ABU DHABI] Players in the oil and gas industry can adopt a more central role at next year’s global climate change summit given the sector’s prominence in the United Arab Emirates’s (UAE) economy, said Chuka Umunna, head of ESG for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at JP Morgan.

COP28 – the 28th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference – will take place in 2023 in the UAE, one of the top producers of oil in the world.

“I think COP28 provides a great opportunity to make sure that (the oil and gas players) are properly at the table and are part of the discussion, instead of being painted as pariahs by one part of the environmental debate,” Umunna said.*