Saudi Arabia is taking a stand against the conventional environmentalist narrative on “climate change.”
Among globalist and leftist circles, climate alarmism is still a common talking point. The Middle Eastern kingdom, whose economy depends heavily on its rich petroleum reserves, is now calling for worldwide action against what it says is a rising threat to the Earth’s climate: Energy from wind and solar sources.
In a Saudi government document obtained by Politico, an argument is made that there is cause for concern about the “lifecycle” greenhouse gas emissions produced by wind, solar, and other renewable sources — sources that many climate change alarmists typically point to as the “clean” alternatives to fossil fuels.
The document is in line with recent arguments by Saudi Arabia in the climate change debate — whereas the environmental establishment widely pushes the narrative that the best way to combat climate change is to transition the world away from fossil fuels such as oil and coal, the Saudi government contends that the more viable solution is the use of fans, filters, and other technologies to pull greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide out of the sky.
While other countries, including the United States, have agreed that such carbon-reducing technologies are part of the solution, Saudi Arabia’s new spin takes things a step further by throwing “green” energy sources under the bus.
Per the document, a speech originally written to be delivered by a Saudi official at the COP28 climate summit last week but that ultimately went unread, carbon removal is an essential practice that must also be applied to reverse the effects of solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable energy mechanisms.
“Renewables are an integral part of the solution,” the speech reads, going on to add that “we must also act immediately to address their lifecycle emissions in the near term. This will require emissions removal.”
Saudi Arabia’s critics say this is the kingdom’s way of weakening support for efforts to move the world away form fossil fuels, given the Saudis’ vested interest in perpetuating petroleum use.
Bill Hare, a climate science advisor to the Caribbean nation of Grenada and CEO of the European think tank Climate Analytics, told Politico that Saudi claims regarding the greenhouse emissions of renewable energy hardware are “totally exaggerated.”
“They come up with all sorts of ways to argue for delay, one way or the other. It’s another twist and turn in their delay playbook,” said Hare. He also claimed that green technologies are getting cleaner.
The outlet further reported:
Saudi efforts to elevate carbon removal and capture technologies at this month’s talks in Dubai are happening as island nations and the European Union seek to build global support for phasing out the use of fossil fuels — the leading cause of climate change and the economic lifeblood of the kingdom. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said Monday that the country would oppose any COP28 text that calls for reducing global fossil fuel consumption.
Saudi Arabia’s push to focus on limiting emissions rather than the fuels that produce them has been aided by the United Arab Emirates, the talks’ host nation, which selected its top oil executive to lead the negotiations.
For those who favor global fossil fuel reduction, the Saudi and Emirati support for carbon capture and storage technologies is merely lip service by which the two petro-giants hope to distract their critics and thereby continue the flow of oil.
The technology favored by the two Middle Eastern nations is classified broadly under the term “carbon management,” which is subdivided into carbon capture and carbon removal. Carbon capture involves minimizing the CO2 output of fossil fuel-powered operations such as steel mills and coal power plants. Carbon removal seeks to take already-released carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to reverse the alleged damage.
In July, the UAE presented the United Nations’ climate agency with new goals and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 19 percent by 2030 from 2019 levels in order to reach zero emissions by the middle of the century.
Another critic of carbon management, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), called the idea that carbon management could allow the world to continue using fossil fuels indefinitely an “illusion.”
“Oil and gas producers around the world need to make profound decisions about their future place in the global energy sector,” Birol said in a statement to Politico. “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals — which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution.”
Yet at at the 2015 Annual Global Warming Policy Foundation Lecture in London, Greenpeace founder Dr. Patrick Moore said: “There is no definitive proof, through real-world observation, that carbon dioxide is responsible for any of the slight warming of the global climate that has occurred during the past 300 years.”
He added, “We are witnessing the greening of the earth as higher levels of CO2 … promote increased growth of plants around the world. And what could be wrong with that, as forests and agricultural crops become more productive?”
