(Glasgow) With a tight smile on his face and the fabric of his traditional thobe swirling around him as he walks through a corridor of the UN climate negotiations, the Saudi Energy Minister says he is shocked by the complaints repeated claims that the world’s largest oil producer is working behind the scenes to sabotage negotiations.
“What you have heard is a false allegation, a cheating and a lie,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud said this week during negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland. He was responding to reporters asking for a response to allegations that Saudi Arabian negotiators are trying to block climate action that would threaten demand for oil.
“We have worked well” with the head of the UN climate negotiations and others, said Prince Abdulaziz.
Negotiators from around 200 countries have until next weekend to find consensus on the next steps to be taken to reduce global fossil fuel emissions and tackle climate change.
Saudi Arabia’s participation in climate negotiations may seem incongruous: a kingdom that has become rich and powerful thanks to oil is participating in negotiations whose main stake is to reduce the consumption of oil and other fossil fuels. While pledging to participate in efforts to reduce emissions in their country, the Saudi leaders have made it clear that they intend to pump and sell their oil for as long as demand allows.
The Saudi Arabia team in Glasgow has put forward proposals ranging from a call to leave negotiations at 6 p.m. daily, often extending until the early hours of the morning, to negotiating veterans on the climate claim to be complex efforts to pit factions of countries against each other in an attempt to block an agreement on measures to decrease the consumption of coal, gas and oil around the world.
“This is also the Saudis’ proposal. They say to themselves: don’t work at night and just accept that it won’t be ambitious, when it comes to the rapid reductions in climate-destroying fossil fuel pollution, ”said Jennifer Tollmann, analyst at E3G, a group of European reflection on the climate.
Then, “if other countries want to agree with Saudi Arabia, they can blame Saudi Arabia,” added Mr.me Tollmann.
Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and chair of a group of senior climate policy makers, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Russia and Saudi Arabia “are pressing hard” to block any mention in Glasgow’s final deal of work to phase out coal or reduce government subsidies to fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia has long been accused of playing the spoiler in the climate negotiations. This year, it is the main country singled out by negotiators, who speak in private, and by observers, who speak publicly. Russia and Australia are also lumped together with Saudi Arabia in the negotiations, as countries that see their future as dependent on coal, natural gas or oil and push for a deal. of Glasgow on the climate which does not threaten them.
Despite efforts to diversify the economy, oil accounts for more than half of Saudi Arabia’s income, allowing the kingdom and the royal family to stay afloat and ensure some stability. . About half of Saudi workers still work in the public sector, with their wages paid largely by oil.
And there’s China, whose dependence on coal makes it the world’s biggest climate polluter. The country says it cannot switch to cleaner energy as quickly as the West asks it to, even though the United States and China have jointly pledged to step up efforts to reduce emissions.
A central question remains in the negotiations: according to scientists and the United Nations, the world has less than a decade to halve its emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture if it is to avoid more catastrophic scenarios of Global warming.
It’s no surprise that island nations, which would vanish under rising oceans in the event of greater warming, are the Glasgow bloc that is putting the most pressure on this summit to lead to the toughest deal.
At the same time, climate advocates accuse the United States and the European Union of not having so far put all their weight in supporting the demands of island nations, although the United States and the European Union often wait until the last days of negotiations to take firm positions on the points under discussion.
The United States, which is historically the world’s worst polluter and major producer of oil and gas, has come under much criticism. The Climate Action Network dishonored the Biden administration by awarding the ‘Fossil of the Day’ award to President Joe Biden, who visited Glasgow last week with an ambitious climate speech, but did not take the ‘commitment to wean his country off coal or reduce US oil production.
Jennifer Morgan, executive director of the environmental group Greenpeace, added that other governments had to “isolate the Saudi delegation” if they wanted the climate conference to be a success.
Saudi Arabia has not hesitated to join the feverish climate commitments from governments ahead of the negotiations. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced ahead of the Glasgow conference that the kingdom would reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2060.
But for years, Saudi leaders have vowed to pump every last molecule of oil.
“Empty and cynical,” said Alden Meyer, senior associate of the E3G climate research group, of Saudi Arabia’s role in global climate talks.
Associated Press reporters Frank Jordans, Annirudha Ghosal and Seth Borenstein contributed to the production of this article.