The Roundtable: Can an Oil State Save the Planet?
Editor's Note: Welcome to our monthly roundtable discussion. Each month, our five student editors will come together to debate a major issue shaping our world. This transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Yehee Jung: So, the annual UN climate summit, COP28, just wrapped up in Dubai, and the final agreement is being hailed by some as "historic." The central paradox of this whole event was that it was hosted by a petrostate, the UAE, and its president was Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the national oil company. To get us started, I want to pose the central question: can a conference run by an oil man, in a city built on oil wealth, possibly produce a meaningful outcome for the climate?
Minwoo Jung: From a geopolitical perspective, the location was actually the key to its success, however limited. For years, these summits have been dominated by Western nations and climate activists making demands that the major oil and gas producing nations see as an existential threat. Holding the summit in Dubai and having an oil CEO at the helm forced a level of buy-in from the petrostates that has been missing from previous COPs. The final agreement, which for the first time explicitly calls for "transitioning away from fossil fuels," would likely not have been agreed to by countries like Saudi Arabia if the summit had been held in, say, Berlin. It was a pragmatic compromise.
Anthony Min: I agree with Minwoo. This was a deal rooted in financial and political reality, not just environmental idealism. The language is important. It calls for "transitioning away," not a "phase-out." That's a huge distinction. It leaves the door open for continued investment in natural gas as a "transitional fuel" and for unproven technologies like carbon capture. It's a compromise that acknowledges the scientific reality that we need to move away from fossil fuels, but it does so in a way that doesn't completely terrify the trillion-dollar oil and gas industry and the nations whose entire economies depend on it.
Yehee Jung: But that’s the problem, isn't it? The science is telling us we need to sprint away from fossil fuels, and this agreement has us taking a leisurely stroll. The loopholes for "transitional fuels" and carbon capture are large enough to drive an oil tanker through. The Loss and Damage fund, meant to help poor countries cope with climate disasters, remains a mostly empty bucket. From a scientific and public health perspective, the deal is a failure because it doesn't align our actions with the physics of the climate system. It’s a politically achievable step, but it’s a scientifically inadequate one.
Saerom Kim: I was really struck by the sheer number of fossil fuel lobbyists at the summit—a record-breaking 2,400 of them. It feels like the conversation is being dominated by the very industry that caused the problem. From a cultural perspective, it’s hard to see this as anything other than a case of regulatory capture. It’s like putting a tobacco company in charge of a conference on lung cancer. It fundamentally undermines the credibility of the entire process for a lot of young people who are deeply anxious about the future of the planet.
Anthony Min: But Saerom, who else is going to pay for the transition? The energy transition will be the largest capital reallocation in human history, costing trillions of dollars. The companies with the capital, the engineering expertise, and the project management skills to build massive offshore wind farms or new energy grids are, in many cases, the very same oil and gas companies we're talking about. A successful transition has to involve them; it can't just be a moral crusade against them.
Yonghyuk Choi: It feels like a team that's down by 20 points with a minute to go, and they just managed to score a single basket. On one hand, it’s progress, and it keeps you in the game. On the other hand, it’s nowhere near enough to actually win. The final agreement at COP28 feels like that. It keeps the diplomatic process alive, which is better than nothing, but it doesn't fundamentally change the losing trajectory we're on.
Final Thoughts
Yonghyuk Choi: The final score of COP28: a small victory for diplomacy, but a big loss on the climate scoreboard.
Anthony Min: It was the most realistic deal possible, acknowledging that you can't transition the global energy system without the consent of the energy producers.
Saerom Kim: The image of 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists at a climate summit tells you everything you need to know about where the real power lies.
Yehee Jung: The deal is a dangerous triumph of political possibility over scientific necessity.
Minwoo Jung: The paradox is that having a petrostate lead the summit was the only way to get fossil fuels into the final text at all.
What do you think? Was COP28 a historic step forward, or a cleverly disguised failure? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
