COP28 President's Renewable Firm Masdar Isn't The Giant It Claims - Bloomberg

COP28 President's Renewable Firm Masdar Isn't The Giant It Claims - Bloomberg

As world leaders descend on Dubai for this year’s biggest climate conference COP28, the United Arab Emirates is pushing for a global commitment to triple renewable energy deployment by the end of the decade. It will also showcase its own investments in solar and wind power.

But a closer look at the numbers shows the UAE’s homegrown renewables champion isn’t the giant it claims — at least not yet.

The UAE was among the first of the Middle East’s major oil exporters to start thinking about the end of fossil fuels. In 2006, it founded Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) under the management of Sultan Al Jaber, who’s now president of COP28. (He also remains Masdar chairman and chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.)

Masdar, which operates renewable projects in the US and the UK as well as the UAE, now claims it has “more than 20 gigawatts of total clean energy production capacity” and that it is “one of the world’s largest renewable energy companies.”