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attaboy

So the industrial leaders of the world are going to cut their emissions while cutting their GDP and they are also to pay others for doing so?


Saudis ask for aid if world cuts dependence on oil
By MICHAEL CASEY (AP) – 9 hours ago

BANGKOK — There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold increase compared to the period from 1985 to 2007 — if countries agree to significantly slash emissions and thereby cut their use of oil. That is the limit most countries agree is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The head of the Saudi delegation Mohammad S. Al Sabban dismissed the IEA figures as "biased" and said OPEC's own calculations showed that Saudi Arabia would lose $19 billion a year starting in 2012 under a new climate pact. The region would lose much more, he said.

"We are among the economically vulnerable countries," Al Sabban told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the talks ahead of negotiations in Copenhagen in December for a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"This is very serious for us," he continued. "We are in the process of diversifying our economy but this will take a long time. We don't have too many resources."
Saudi Arabia, which sits atop the world's largest proven oil reserves, is seeing economic growth slide because of fallout from the global meltdown, but experts still expect the country, flush with cash from oil's earlier price spike last year, to be better able than other nations to cope with the current crisis.

Al Sabban accused Western nations of pursuing an agenda against oil producers, under the guise of protecting the planet.

"Many politicians in the Western world think these climate change negotiations and the new agreement will provide them with a golden opportunity to reduce their dependence on imported oil," Al Sabban said. "That means you will transfer the burden to developing countries, especially to those highly dependent on the exploitation of oil."

Al Sabban said his country wanted a new deal and was not impeding progress in talks as some activists have claimed.

An Arab environmental group IndyACT and the environmental group Germanwatch released a report Thursday accusing Saudi Arabia of blocking key elements of the negotiations. Among their tactics, the groups said, was slowing negotiations by insisting that the economic woes of oil producers be included in the text.

"Despite the variability in the region, the current Arab position is mainly focused around protecting the oil trade rather than saving the planet form the adverse impacts of climate change," said Wael Hmaidan, the executive director of IndyACT.

Most countries have agreed that any new pact should include provisions to avoid temperature increases of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above preindustrial levels — the threshold at which most scientists say serious climate change will ensue.

That would require emissions cuts from industrial countries of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, far above the 15 to 23 percent cuts rich countries have offered so far. It would also require developing countries to scale back their emissions.

Both rich and poor countries are counting on a transition to a low carbon economy as a key component of meeting their reductions, a move that would require them to away from fossil fuels and toward renewables like solar, wind and hydro power.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Saudis ask for aid if world cuts dependence on oil

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As a kid I always thought my nickname was "attaboy" until I realized they were rooting for the dog: "Attaboy, get 'em! Get 'em!".

sabang

Now I've heard it all.

Bower

Well that just about takes the biscuit!!

helge

Its my sincere hope, that it never comes to, that the Saudies will have to work themselves.

attaboy

All those years of keeping hemlines below the ankle aren't gonna payoff?

Norton

A small $10,000 charge for the 2 million Hadj visitors a year and it's sorted. Who needs oil when you got Mecca.

Jet Gorgon

^ Good solution, Norts.

sabang

^ You'd better get in there quick then Barbie, before they start charging.

Some of the Sheikhs might also consider reducing their private fleet of Boeings and Airbuses, and maybe even sending members of their harem to La Perla in Milan for lingerie shopping trips on commercial flights (First Class of course) rather than a private Boeing.

Doesn't belt tightening suck.

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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Norton

Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region whose economies are based solely on oil have for years been spouting rhetoric about transforming economy to be less reliant on oil. A lot of talk and no real progress. When the demand drops or the oil is depleted, its back to square one.

Square 1:

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There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

Woodrow Wilson

Marmite the Dog

The world will have no use for the Saudis when the oil has gone, so can't they just be scrapped?

sabang

I'm sure we can put the camel jockeys to good use, but as for the Saud family...

Mr Earl

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, long live Wahhabi Islam.

Milkman

Many think the money and fact that don't have to do much themselves, keeps the current KSA regime in power.

Whenever the money dries up, Saudi Society and government could have problems.

I've often wondered how much oil the Saudis actually have. Saudi Oil Ministry keeps their reserve info very secret.

I don't see nations reducing dependence on oil. Easy to talk about, hard to do.

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sabang

Saudi Arabia is unique, in fact I venture to suggest it is not a nation state, in the legal sense. It is a large Sheikdom- which means it is owned by a family, in this case the Saud family. So it's sovereign status is the same as that of the Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Or for that matter, a large Farm.

Oz has more camels incidentally, and Russia more oil. And the only reason the Sauds 'own' Arabia to this day is because of the Yanks and their sidekicks the Poms.

attaboy

All those years of buying solid gold AK-47s and yachts, wrecking Mercedes Benzes while racing in the desert, funding terrorists and funding religious fanatic schools, paying people to sit around cafes all day smoking cigarettes and playing back gammon, all those billions weren't an investment in their future? They're getting nothing in return for having done all that?