‘Itching to pump more oil’: What could the UAE’s exit from OPEC mean for the climate?

“The demand for power is going to go up and up and up,” US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told an Abu Dhabi oil conference in November. “Today’s the day to announce that there is no energy transition. There is only energy addition.”

His pro-oil proclamations drew widespread applause from his Emirati hosts.

Now, the United Arab Emirates is on track to realise this with its exit from oil cartel OPEC, which controls around 40 per cent of the world’s crude oil production.

The country had pushed back in recent years against OPEC production quotas it felt were too low – meaning it wasn't able to sell as much oil to the world as it wanted to.

“Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” Capital Economics wrote in an analysis.

Will the UAE’s exit from OPEC mean more fossil fuel production?

The UAE’s exit from OPEC is unlikely to have an immediate effect on oil supplies and prices, which remain at the mercy of Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz shipping route, which carries around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas exports.

But in the longer term, more oil looks likely. The country says it will bring “additional production to market in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions”.

The UAE, the world’s third-largest oil producer, had been pumping out around 3.4 million barrels of crude a day just before the US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28 February. This fell to 1.9 million barrels per day in March, with the country facing missile and drone attacks by Iran, a fellow OPEC member.

Analysts say it has capacity to produce roughly 5 million barrels a day, making it one of OPEC’s few members with the ability to quickly increase production.

Burning one barrel of crude oil produces roughly 0.43 tonnes of CO2 emissions. If the UAE were to ramp up production by an additional 1.6 million barrels per day, that’s potentially 250 million additional tonnes of CO2 released annually – greater than the annual emissions of Spain, or of the UAE itself.

The UAE’s departure from OPEC will weaken the group’s ability to regulate supply and prices, but it could also trigger other OPEC members to ramp up production.

The UAE’s exit from OPEC also signals a deepening alignment with the US Trump administration, which has made fossil fuel expansion central to its energy policy and has actively encouraged Gulf states to pump more oil to keep prices low.

Is Gulf oil funding Europe’s green transition?

The UAE hosted the United Nations COP28 climate talks in 2023, a conference that ended with a historic pledge by nearly 200 countries to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels.

Climate activists viewed the talks with scepticism, not least because national oil company CEO Sultan Al Jaber served as COP28 president while simultaneously overseeing plans to expand production.

But some say the UAE isn't choosing between oil and renewables: it’s racing to maximise both.

Its state-owned renewable energy company Masdar is aggressively investing in clean energy both at home and abroad. It has the Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), sovereign investor Mubadala, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – headed by Al Jaber– as joint shareholders.

With investments in more than 40 countries around the world, it is a major player in European offshore wind, with Hywind Scotland (the world's first floating offshore wind farm), England's Dogger Bank South, and Germany’s Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm (under construction) in its portfolio.

Betting on fossil fuels risks the climate

The country said its decision to leave OPEC “reflects the UAE's long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production.”

Fossil fuels remain the primary driver of the accelerating climate crisis, with global emissions on track to reach record highs this year despite successive rounds of international pledges.

Staying within the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C warming threshold could, according to some projections, become effectively impossible by early 2028.

What the UAE’s exit from OPEC makes clear is that some of the world’s largest producers are betting the world will keep burning oil long after the science says it should have stopped – and are positioning themselves accordingly.