There is little doubt that Chair of the Elders Mary Robinson played a big part at COP28, the massive global climate negotiations in Dubai.
It is hard to imagine, that ahead of the summit, she expected to be so influential. After all, she was not representing any of the 198 negotiating teams.
Nor was she part of the myriad of non-government organisations working so hard to limit the climate chaos that is unfolding.
But Mrs Robinson was "a player" in what occurred at COP28. It was not so much what she did, although she did plenty.
Nor was it what she said, although she had plenty to say, and did so with eloquence, intelligence and passion.
It is what Mrs Robinson represented at COP28 and the authority with which she carried herself.
That is what was so powerful about the presence of this 79-year-old former Irish president at the summit.
Ahead of COP28, there had been much suspicion and annoyance among environmental campaigners over how and why the United Arab Emirates could ever have been allowed to preside over the proceedings.
UAE is one of the largest producers of climate damaging fossil fuels in the world.
The appointment as President of COP28 of Dr Sultan Al Jaber, the Chief Executive of that country's national oil company, fed those fears.
We know from documents leaked over the past 12 months, that massive oil companies like Exxon Mobil knew for 30 years that the fossil fuels making them filthy rich were changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
They knew fully what happens when you suck up the black oily liquified carbon remains of dead trees and algae, stored underground and heated under pressure for hundreds of millions of years.
They knew that when oil is burned each molecule of carbon it contains combines with oxygen, floats off into the atmosphere, immediately starts changing the energy balance, and locks in heat from earth that would otherwise escape into space.
They knew too that the impact of changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere in this manner would be very long-term and catastrophic in terms of runaway climate change.
Oil companies saw climate chaos coming decades before any of the rest of us, but they lied about it.
Their scientists told them all about it in internal reports and research that was immediately locked away and never publicised.
In the 1970s and 1980s scientists at Exxon Mobil produced what are described now as "breathtakingly accurate" predictions about how oil would cause the climate disaster that Simon Steill, the United Nations Climate Change Executive Secretary, said is putting the safety, security, lives and livelihoods of eight billion people at risk.
However, the oil companies didn’t care enough about the consequences for people to let the world know. They only cared about the money and the power, and the influence that it gave them.
So they covered it up, spending loads of money to sow confusion, undermine the science, and set efforts to find solutions back by 30 years and in Dubai in 2023, the oil industry was put in charge of COP28.
Dr Al Jaber took to the role in a manner designed to reassure the world that his intentions were totally honourable.
The science has spoken he told the delegates on the first day.
He said: "The moment is now to find a new road with ambition that corrects course and accelerates climate action to 2030 …The role of fossil fuels needs to be included."
Not a bad start or so it seemed until a very testy exchange he had with Mary Robinson, about a week before COP28, came to light.
The row took place at the "She Changes Climate" virtual conference which highlighted that supporting women and children, the main victims of climate change because of disadvantage, poverty, powerlessness, and more, is the key to tackling climate change.
Mrs Robinson put it to Dr Al Jaber, in a video clip that emerged, that phasing out fossil fuels is the one decision that COP28 could take to help make a difference and as President of COP28 he could take that decision with credibility.
Dr Al Jaber retorted that he would not engage in alarmist discussions and that there is no science that says phasing out fossil fuels would limit warming to 1.5C.
The most testy bit was the part where he goaded her. He told her to show him a pathway to phase out fossil fuels that does not send the entire world back to living in caves.
He urged her to show him her solutions, told her that she would never solve the climate problem by pointing fingers at the fossil fuel industry and told her to stop it.
Many environmentalists and scientists thought "wow" when they learned of the exchange.
Former US vice president and environmental campaigner Al Gore blasted Dr Al Jaber, saying he has conflicts of interest.
Mr Gore said that COP28 cannot play games designed to protect the obscene profits of oil and gas states.
Dr Al Jaber then hosted a rare press conference to address the concerns his exchange with Mrs Robinson had caused.
He described himself as an engineer with a passion, a conviction and a respect for the science. He insisted that his exchange with Mrs Robinson had been misrepresented, misinterpreted and misreported.
Mrs Robinson responded by saying absolutely nothing. It was the most eloquent "nothing" anyone has ever heard.
The Chair of the Elders could have argued all day.
She could have burst a gut in the spotlight, emphasising the responsibility of the fossil fuel industry to stop worsening the atmospheric damage they collectively make five trillion dollars a year out of.
She could have gone on, ad nauseam, about climate justice and so much more. However, Mrs Robinson didn’t need to say a word.
Sultan Al Jaber had done all the talking for her. Rarely has saying "nothing" been so powerful.
When Mrs Robinson arrived at COP28 in Dubai on the Friday that marked the start of the second week of the climate negotiations, the media, including myself, were keen to get a reaction.
A comment from her about Dr Al Jaber at that point would have been like mana from heaven for us.
As a story, COP28 was flagging a little bit at that stage and any reference to the COP28 President from her would have kept us going for at least another 24-hour news cycle.
She said "I’m not going there", "I don’t go there", "I won’t go there".
They were the three answers I heard her give to journalist when she was asked about the sultan and what he had said about fossil fuels.
She is after all one of The Elders which an independent group of older global leaders set up by Nelson Mandela to use their combined acquired wisdom and influence to working for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet.
Mrs Robinson played that role of an elder to perfection at COP28.
She didn’t have to get down and dirty with the sultan or the 2,470 oil industry executive and affiliates that were there.
A letter from OPEC to its member countries and affiliates was leaked during COP28. It urged them to do everything to block the mention of phasing out fossil fuels in the final text.
It warned them that attitudes about phasing out fossil fuel usage were close to a tipping point in the discussions and that prosperity was at risk.
Mrs Robinson’s response on that occasion was to stand up to them.
She emphasised that any agreement at COP28 would be decided by the collective will of all countries and not by the demands of a few and that indeed is how it turned out.
COP28 did not decide to include the wording that OPEC and the now terrified oil industry fears so much. So the specific term "phasing out fossil fuels" is not included.
However, a very clear signal is included that the world is at the start of the end of the age of fossil fuels.
The final wording called for "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science".
Welcoming the signal from the climate summit that the fossil fuel era must end, the Elders called it an "historic step".
They underscored that the transition needs to be rapid, fully funded, cover all sectors, and involve all countries.
They said its still too little too late, and more urgent ambition is needed.
They said: "Science is clear that phasing out all fossil fuels is essential if the global temperature increase is to be limited to 1.5C."
The Elders would probably say its purely coincidental that this last line sounds like a little dig back at Sultan Al Jaber. However, it does.
The oil industry did not have it all its own way at COP28. The fight for climate action will go on and on.
Next year, COP29 will take place in Azerbaijan, which is another major oil producing state in eastern Europe.
Hopefully, Mary Robinson will be there too, still using her influence, and her presence, and her determination for climate justice to its full effect.
