Saudi Arabia and other oil heads keep refuting the science behind phase-out of fossil fuels at COP28; Are they right?

If you're trying to start a sheep club, you wouldn't appoint a wolf as the president. This is the main controversy surrounding the ongoing COP28 summit, the world's premier and most important climate conference, that has appointed Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as its president.

The Sultan holds many titles, but is most widely known as the president of ADNOC — COP28 host United Arab Emirates' state-run oil company, and one of the biggest in the world. While progress on the loss and damage climate fund for developing countries was an early, much-needed victory, Al Jaber once again came under fire for remarking that we can limit global temperature rise to the 1.5°C mark even with fossil fuels on the table.

Fossil fuels have been considered the primary culprit behind the planet-warming climate crisis, but there could be some silver lining in the fact that the UAE is well-connected to other major oil-producing countries, and could thus sway them to take the tough policy decisions necessary to save the planet. However, the economies of these nations are heavily dependent on their oil reserves, and thus, have remained staunchly uncooperative.

Almost predictably, discussions seemed to have taken a turn for the bleak once again. In a recent address, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister told Bloomberg that the nation would "absolutely not" agree to the recent phase down/out of fossil fuels. Incidentally, Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest exporter of oils.

The Prince remarked that phasing down our dependence on fossil fuels was not a practical solution in the current state of things. This comes a mere week after United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that unless we achieve a total phase-out of fossil fuels, complete climate disaster would be on the horizon.

Is there actual science behind the oil phase-out?

This isn't even the first time climate experts have crossed knives with the head of an oil-producing country. A few days ago, Al Jaber himself remarked that there is "no science" behind the notion that cutting out fossil fuels will help us restrict global warming to 1.5°C.

The scientific community refuted this stance vehemently, explaining that there is, in fact, a wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that a total phase-out is non-negotiable to save the planet from warming to oblivion.

According to an opinion piece by climate scientist Steve Pye, a 2021 research paper published just before the 2021 COP26 summit notes that 90% of the world's coal and 60% of its old and gas must remain pristine underground if we are to have any hope of meeting our Paris Agreement temperature targets. Production and usage of fossil fuels comprises 90% of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions.

More recently, another study stressed that for us to stay below 1.5°C, coal, oil and gas supply must decline by 95%, 62% and 42%, respectively, between 2020 and 2050.Even these are also optimistic scenarios based on an assumed trajectory of technology development, which many experts already consider more than realistic.

But forget independent studies, even the world's most premier organisations rally behind the phase-out front. Both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency assert that oil and gas fields need to decrease production at accelerated rates to limit global warming to necessary levels.

Nevertheless, COP28 is a marathon, not a race. While distraught, many continue hoping that oil giants will come around and agree to the terms necessary to save our planet in the limited time we have left.