The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels — the oil, gas and coal that, when burned, create emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030.
I mean, the world economy moving away from petroleum-based fuels would make them mostly geopolitically irrelevant (the exception being that Mecca is (currently) in Saudi Arabia), so this isn’t terribly surprising.
I don’t understand why a unanimous final statement is so important for the COP. Making big compromises to appease OPEC will send a devastating signal to the people in Europe, America and so on. This will accelerate the loss of trust in politics in these countries. Why not let the talks fail and announce a big multilateral agreement the next day uniting the Americas, Europe and China? This will send a strong message and will bring us forward in climate politics.
Saudi Arabia is taking the fall for the other oil-producing nations (or the corporations that own those nations), allowing them all to ignore climate change entirely. This way they can all point to Saudi Arabia and say, “Blame them, not us! We did everything we could, but Saudi Arabia just wouldn’t let us come to an agreement. Oh, well. Too bad. Maybe next time.”
COP28 is a fake climate conference led by oil billionaires and fossil fuel execs. Their only goal is to exert control on the global messaging around climate change. They will never agree to meaningful change. We need to be calling it out as the charade it is and demand a legitimate conference that excludes fossil fuel execs and billionaires entirely. There is no “self-regulation”. They need to be regulated by force of laws, not empty promises and fake climate summits.
COP28 is a fake climate conference led by oil billionaires and fossil fuel execs.
That’s my point, just let it fail and prepare an agreement without the oil execs. Multilateral agreements happen all the time, why should COP be the only possibility to make climate politics happen?
Is there a legitimate reason why « we » globally care about their opinion ?
They’ll just start funding more terrorist organizations and attacks à la 9/11. The Saudis are no one’s friends and the world would do well to remember that.
Yeah. And yet it’s one of the very few places where USA aren’t exporting a lot of freedom…
