SHARM EL-SHEIKH,
What's not highlighted in the glossy gallery are the earth-warming fossil fuels that the country continues to pump out of the ground for global export. Fossil fuel emissions are the reason why negotiators from nearly 200 countries have gathered at the annual two-week conference, haggling over how pollution can be cut and how fast to do it.
In and around the conference,
“We have hugely ambitious goals and targets," Saudi climate envoy
The effort is part of a large push by
The Saudi energy minister,
Crown
Still, energy exports are the Saudi economy's mainstay, earning
At the Saudi forum, officials and invited guest speakers from renewable energy companies held forth on topics like clean hydrogen, greening the desert, and a futuristic desert city project called Neom.
State-owned oil giant
“I’m concerned because of lack of investment in the oil and gas in particular," said Nasser, touching on a frequent theme.
“Yes, there is good investment happening in the alternatives,” such as wind and solar power, he said, adding that the amount of money spent on oil production capacity has fallen to
“That is not enough to meet global demand in the mid to long term,” he said.
An Aramco spokesman said Nasser wasn't available for an interview.
Among the Saudi announcements, there were plans to set up a regional center to “advance emissions reductions” and one to host a regional climate week ahead of next year's COP meeting.
There's also a plan for 13 renewable energy projects with a total generating capacity of 11.4 gigawatts, though experts said that's a step back from numbers announced in previous years.
Once they’re up and running, the new energy projects will cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 20 million tons a year.
It's all part of the kingdom's pledged to cut emissions by 278 million tons a year by 2030. That's still small compared to about 10 billion metric tons of carbon spewed globally into the air annually.
The kingdom also upgraded its tree planting goal to 600 million by 2030, including mangroves, up from its 450 million initial target.
Climate experts weren't convinced.
“Saudi Arabia would be better placed to focus on cutting emissions rather than relying on carbon capture and storage and questionable reductions from planting trees, the offsets of which would simply allow them to continue increasing emissions from burning fossil fuels," said
“To keep emissions on a 1.5˚C pathway, all governments must focus on cutting fossil fuel emissions, not offsetting them.”
The Climate Action Tracker, operated by the institute and its partners, rates
The tracker analyzes nations’ climate targets and policies compared to the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement that spells out ideally limiting the Earth's temperature rise to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).
Saudi authorities are promoting what they call a “circular carbon economy” to cut emissions from oil and gas operations, but the tracker says this it “only addresses a fraction of relevant emissions in
Saudi Arabia’s oil and gas assets spew 900 million tons of emissions a year, according to an inventory of top known sources of greenhouse gas emitters compiled by the Climate TRACE coalition and launched at
There's also a plan for a greenhouse gas crediting and offsetting scheme next year, with few details. Carbon credits, which allow countries and companies to pay to reduce their carbon footprints, say by planting trees, have become increasingly controversial, with critics saying they're a license for polluting companies to keep polluting.
At least year's talks in
As negotiations on the final agreement head into their second and final week, watchdog groups warned about the influence of so-called petrostates and industry lobbyists. They counted 636 people linked to fossil fuel companies on the meeting’s provisional list of participants, a quarter more than last year's tally.
“The Saudis may well be coming to
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