Serious accusations against oil state Saudi Arabia allegedly manipulated document at climate summit
Saudi Arabia is one of the largest oil producers in the world and is considered a stubborn blocker of measures. Now a representative is even said to have manipulated an official climate summit document.
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- A representative of the Saudi Ministry of Energy is accused of altering a negotiating text at the climate summit.
- Among other things, he deleted a passage stating that the countries had to tighten up their climate targets in line with the Paris Agreement.
- Many participants at the climate summit described Saudi Arabia as a "wrecking ball".
The World Climate Conference in Baku is in danger of collapsing over the dispute about additional climate aid. Two groups - the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries - walked out of an important meeting on Saturday, claiming that they had not been consulted by the presidency.
Now a representative of Saudi Arabia is accused of directly making changes to an official COP29 negotiating text. This is reported by "The Guardian" and "Der Spiegel".
"Sharpen climate targets" simply deleted
The Azerbaijani presidency had previously circulated a document with updates to a negotiating text.
However, the document was sent with the "Track changes" function of the previously circulated version. In two cases, the document showed that the changes were made directly by Basel Alsubaity, who comes from the Saudi Ministry of Energy and heads the JTWP. It was not sent to other countries for editing, as the Guardian writes.
The representative of the ministry deleted the central section on reducing greenhouse gases. It stated that countries should tighten up their climate targets "in line with the Paris Agreement". He also removed another important passage. This concerns the confirmation of measures that were already adopted at the last conference in Dubai and which, among other things, provided for the tripling of renewable energies and the phasing out of fossil fuels.
The presidencies of the climate conferences usually distribute the negotiating texts to all countries at the same time as non-editable PDF documents, which are then discussed. Granting one party editing access "runs the risk of jeopardizing the entire COP", an expert is quoted as saying by the Guardian.
"Wrecking ball" Saudi Arabia
Many participants at the current climate summit have described Saudi Arabia as a "wrecking ball". The presidency of COP29, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Saudi delegation were asked for a statement following the revelation, according to the Guardian.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabia has long been seen as a stubborn blocker of action at UN climate summits.
A 2023 report by the Climate Social Science Network concluded that Saudi Arabia in particular has played an outsized role in undermining progress at global climate negotiations.
For example, the fossil fuel giant has a 30-year history of obstruction and delay to protect its national oil and gas sector and ensure that as little as possible and as slowly as possible is achieved at the UN climate negotiations.
