"Can you imagine someone giving you $170,000 (129,000)? What would you buy? Can you imagine getting another $170,000 one minute later? And the handouts then continuing every minute for years? If so, you have a feel for the colossal cash machine that is Saudi Arabia's state oil company Aramco, the world's biggest producer of oil and gas last year. That tidal wave of cash keeps the authoritarian kingdom afloat,"
"But it is also why the drive for accelerating climate action, principally getting the world off fossil fuels, is seen as an existential threat to Saudi Arabia: its economy and even its ruling royal family. For decades, Saudi Arabia has fought harder than any other country to block and delay international climate action a diplomatic wrecking ball saying that abandoning fossil fuels is a fantasy."
"Its opposition has continued in the run-up to the UN Cop30 climate summit in Brazil, yet the country is now also making a whirlwind switch to renewable power at home. In another contradiction, slowing climate action worsens the impacts on a desert kingdom that is extremely vulnerable to global heating and where its 36 million people already contend with conditions at the verge of livability."
Saudi Arabia produces massive oil and gas revenues that flow through Aramco and sustain large citizen subsidies, global soft-power projects and billion-dollar construction. The country records GDP per capita of $35,230, population 36 million, 736 million tonnes CO2 annually and 22.13 tonnes CO2 per person. The national climate plan (NDC) dates from 2021 and is rated critically insufficient. Saudi diplomacy has long resisted international efforts to phase out fossil fuels even as domestic policy accelerates renewable power deployment. The kingdom remains highly vulnerable to global heating and faces worsening livability risks for its population.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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