"UAE oil company executives working with Cop28 team, leak reveals"

Senior executives from the UAE’s national oil company are working with the Cop28 team as the country ramps up its PR campaign ahead of the major UN climate summit later this year, leaked internal records show.

Two PR professionals from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) are identified as providing “additional support” to the team running the summit, according to a Cop28 communications strategy document obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) and the Guardian. It adds to growing evidence of blurred lines between the UAE’s Cop28 team and its fossil fuel industry...

The Cop28 team previously stated that there were “clear governance guidelines in place to ensure the team can operate entirely independently from any other entity”.

“It is wholly inappropriate for Adnoc staff to be doing PR for Cop28,” said Pascoe Sabido, a researcher from Corporate Observatory Europe who co-coordinates the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition. He says the findings clearly demonstrate the close links between the oil company and the summit team...

“The Cop28 team regularly receives queries not related to Cop28 that it directs to the appropriate UAE entities to answer,” the [Cop28] spokesperson [said]...

Adnoc did not respond to requests for comment.

Sabido said: “The fossil fuel industry has consistently and repeatedly pushed back against a managed phase out of all fossil fuels because it means the end of the road for their core business.” He called for measures to protect the UN from the “pervasive” influence of the fossil fuel industry and other oil-producing nations...