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The world’s most sensible oil exporter has the fiercest opponent to a new deal at the United Nations climate summit, according to other people involved in the negotiations.
By Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer and Vivian Nereim
Report of the COP28 summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Saudi Arabia, the world’s most sensible oil exporter, has the biggest impediment to reaching a deal at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phase-out of fossil fuels to fight global warming, negotiators and others said.
The Saudi delegation adamantly opposed any language in an agreement that even mentioned fossil fuels: oil, fuel and coal that, when burned, create emissions that dangerously harm the planet. Saudi negotiators also opposed a provision, backed by at least 118 countries, to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.
Saudi diplomats have been especially adept at stalling and slowing down talks, according to interviews with a dozen others who took part in closed-door negotiations. The tactics consist of including words in draft agreements that other countries consider poison pills; slowing down a provision to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; organize a strike at a secondary meeting; and refusing to give in to negotiators calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels.
The Saudi opposition is significant because U. N. regulations require that any agreement reached at the climate summit be approved unanimously. Any one of the 198 countries can thwart a deal.
Saudi Arabia is not alone in expressing fear of more ambitious global efforts to combat climate change. The United States has tried to insert reservations into the language of phasing out fossil fuels. India and China opposed language that would target coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. Iran and Russia have been pushing for provisions to protect herbal fuel. And many countries, like Iraq, have expressed fears that shutting off oil and fuel supplies could devastate countries that rely on fossil fuels for their income and have called for more money from richer countries. countries.
But Saudi Arabia has emerged as the ultimate implacable opponent of any fossil fuel deal.
“Most countries vary depending on the degree or speed with which fossil fuels are moving away,” said Linda Kalcher, a former U. N. weather adviser who took part in the negotiations this week. Saudi Arabia, he said, “doesn’t even have that conversation. “
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.
If nations agreed in Dubai to phase out fossil fuels, or even phase them out, it would be a historic moment. Previous U. N. climate agreements have been reluctant to mention the word “fossil fuels,” let alone phase them out.
But it turns out that the dynamic has replaced this year, the year of history. An organization of countries led by small islands, whose countries are most vulnerable to sea-level rise and other excessive climate-driven weather events, needs the summit to adopt a formal agreement. declaration that the era of coal, oil and vegetable fuels deserves to come to an end soon. With Europe’s help, they have made the “phase-out of fossil fuels” their main goal in the negotiations, known as COP28.
The debate has been deeply controversial. In particular, the oil- and gas-rich countries of the Persian Gulf seem to see the long-term challenge of fossil fuels, a resource that has brought ordinary wealth to their governments and royal families, as an existential risk as the climate replaces itself. .
“It would be unacceptable for politically motivated campaigns to jeopardize the prosperity and long-term prosperity of our people,” Haitham Al-Ghais, secretary-general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), warned last week. Reject any text that points to fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia is the country with the most influence in the OPEC cartel. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister, recently said his country “will not accept at all” a deal that calls for relief or phasing out fossil fuels.
This stance is more intransigent than that taken by Saudi Arabia’s neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, some other primary oil and fuel producer. Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati official and oil official chairing the talks, said on Friday that the transition away from fossil fuels was “essential” and that countries deserve to aim for “the highest ambition imaginable” in the fight against global warming.
Saudi Arabia and several oil corporations have tried to concentrate negotiations on emissions and not fossil fuels themselves, arguing that technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) can simply trap and bury the greenhouse fuels of oil and fuels and allow them to continue. use.
But other global leaders and top environmentalists say the most productive way to reduce emissions is to move to a cleaner energy bureaucracy, such as solar, wind or nuclear, reserving carbon capture for rare conditions where there are opportunities.
“The truth we are facing is that we want to phase out fossil fuels, period,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s climate action commissioner. “We can’t get out of the challenge through CCS. “
In the negotiation rooms, the scenario is even more combative, according to negotiators and others who asked not to be identified so they could describe the closed-door negotiations.
All described the Saudi-led Arab bloc of nations at the United Nations as procedural tactics to delay and thwart a fossil fuel deal.
Several people described Saudi diplomats giving lengthy speeches that took up the bulk of time at meetings. They also said Saudi negotiators have argued that the 2015 Paris climate agreement calls for cutting emissions, without mentioning specific energy sources, and that nations must not go beyond that original mandate.
Three negotiators also said Saudi Arabia had worked to delay the adoption of text setting targets for countries to address the consequences of climate change. All three said Saudi Arabia did not necessarily oppose the provision on the merits. But, negotiators said, if countries don’t see progress on adaptation, they may not be willing to adopt a broader agreement that includes phasing out fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia also insists that the word “common but differentiated responsibilities” be included in several parts of the text. The word refers to the precept that rich countries do more to stop climate change because they have been polluting the longest. But the United States and Europe oppose the language, saying it has been used in U. N. forums to ease pressure on rich, emerging economies like China and wealthy Persian Gulf states, which are technically considered emerging countries.
Saudi Arabia’s insistence on including the phrase amounts to “sheer delay tactics,” a European negotiator said.
On Sunday, the Saudi-led Arab bloc walked out of a meeting on finance, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“These are dirty tricks to impede progress toward phasing out fossil fuels,” said Jake Schmidt, strategic director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Saudi Arabia has long poured sand into the climate negotiations. In fact, one of the reasons the U. N. climate framework works through consensus, with any country able to block a deal, is that Saudi Arabia demanded those regulations at the first climate summit in 1992 and has been fighting for them ever since.
The Saudi delegation is dominated by members of the country’s Energy Ministry, which is closely associated with the state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco. As recently as last year it pushed, along with Russia, to delete a reference to “human-induced climate change” from a U.N. scientific document, effectively challenging the scientific fact that burning fossil fuels causes climate change.
Saudi officials have argued in the past that phasing out fossil fuels is unrealistic, calling the concept a form of ethical demagoguery by countries that appear unable to live up to their commitments. whereas, during the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, some European countries have turned to coal-fired power plants.
In 2021, Prince Abdulaziz, the Saudi energy minister, famously dismissed as fantasy the strategy laid out by the International Energy Agency for nations to reach a point by 2050 where they would stop adding emissions to the atmosphere. He likened it to a sequel to “La La Land,” the musical film.
Despite decades of attempts to break the “resource curse,” Saudi Arabia remains heavily reliant on fossil fuel revenues to maintain its economy, budget, and political stability.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is spending tens of billions of dollars to diversify the Saudi economy, investing in sectors such as renewable energy, tourism, entertainment and synthetic intelligence.
Paradoxically, that means the government needs oil revenue to fund its plans for life after oil, analysts say. Officials expect budget shortfalls every year through 2026, partly because of a decline in oil revenue.
Saudi officials say they see no contradiction between moving toward a renewable energy future, fighting climate change and continuing to export the kingdom’s oil, which they and other major oil producers say the world will need in the coming years, if not for energy, then. for petrochemicals.
At COP28, attendees of the Saudi expo are greeted with bright green letters proclaiming, “Here we write the future. “A striking panoramic projection of forests planted in the desert and business owners eager to communicate about green projects magnify the message: this is the new Saudi Arabia.
But the issue, analysts say, is whether the Saudi diplomats present in the rooms are willing to abandon their old positions.
CNN’s Somini Sengupta, Jenny Gross and Max Bearak contributed to this report from Dubai.
Lisa Friedman reports on federal environmental and climate policy from Washington. He has published extensively on the Trump administration’s efforts to repeal climate regulations and replace regulations and restrict the use of science in policymaking. Learn more about Lisa Friedman
Brad Plumer is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions. At The Times, he has also covered international climate talks and the changing energy landscape in the United States. More about Brad Plumer
Vivian Nereim is the Times’ senior reporter covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. It is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Learn more about Vivian Néréim
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