Al Jaber has no plans to shrink extraction

Sultan al Jaber, the ex-Cop host now with his oil executive hat back on, has told the Guardian the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), which he runs, has no plans to scale back output and every intention of continuing to act as what he calls “a responsible, reliable supplier of low-carbon energy”. Two points: the idea the oil and gas Adnoc produces is in any sense low-carbon is absurd. Al Jaber claims his company produces it efficiently but a tonne of oil still produces more than two tonnes of CO2 when burned, and a tonne of gas about half as much but still a great deal more than the fixed and steadily-amortised carbon cost of building a wind turbine or solar plant. You can eliminate all the methane by-product from oil production and order your workers to get around entirely by bike, and oil is still the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel bar coal. But secondly, as readers of our Boardroom Sensemaker will know, Credit Agricole, since Cop, has announced it will stop financing new fossil fuel extraction projects. HSBC and BNP Paribas have already made similar undertakings. That’s progress.