A kingdom built on oil now controls the world’s climate progress

In the months before the signing of the Paris Agreement, the then-crown prince of oil-rich Abu Dhabi wondered aloud about the fate of his sheikhdom at the end of the fossil fuel era.

“After we have loaded this last barrel of oil, are we going to feel sad?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan asked attendees at the 2015 Government Summit in the United Arab Emirates. “If our investment today is right, I think—dear brothers and sisters—we will celebrate that moment.”