NICK POPE
CONTRIBUTOR
The Saudi Arabian energy minister said Wednesday that the new United Nations (UN) green energy transition pledge will not diminish the country’s ability to sell fossil fuels, according to Al Arabiya, a Saudi Arabian news outlet.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the landmark international pledge to transition away from fossil fuels will not affect Saudi Arabian crude oil sales, according to Al Arabiya. The UN hailed the agreement as “the beginning of the end” for fossil fuels, but Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest producers of crude oil, does not seem especially concerned that the pledge spells doom for the country’s economic lifeblood.
Nearly 200 countries, including the U.S., signed onto the energy transition pledge on Wednesday, just before the annual UN climate summit adjourned.
“The pharaoh methodology of dictating things has been buried, and so people are free in their choices,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the oil minister, told Al Arabiya in an interview. He also said explicitly that the COP28 pledge would not hurt the country’s ability to sell crude oil. (RELATED: Biden To Visit Saudi Arabia After Once Vowing To Make Them A ‘Pariah’ During 2019 Debate)
Are the Saudis getting too powerful? https://t.co/cc9EfJ9EeH
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 10, 2023
“We were given priority that I don’t think I have ever seen it in any such conference,” bin Salman told Al Arabiya regarding the level of access he and his colleagues received at the summit.
The pledge calls for “developed” countries, such as the U.S. and countries in Western Europe, to lead the way in the transition away from fossil fuels and in pursuit of green energy as “developing” countries follow that lead.
Notably, Saudi Arabia is considered a “developing” country despite its status as the world’s second-largest oil producer in 2022 and ranking as a top-ten emitter of carbon dioxide.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, reacted to the announcement of the new commitment by asserting that fossil fuels “jeopardize our planet and our people,” according to the White House. “The climate crisis is the existential threat of our time. But as America has always done, we will turn crisis into opportunity – creating clean energy jobs, revitalizing communities, and improving quality of life.”
Saudi Arabian representatives, as well as delegates from other major oil-producing countries, reportedly resisted efforts from other officials to orient the commitment around a promise to “phase out” fossil fuels altogether, as opposed to a more broadly-defined energy transition.
Ultimately, it appears that Saudi Arabia, a leading member of OPEC+, got its way. The agreement does not call for a fossil fuel “phase out,” instead advocating for governments to accelerate the deployment of carbon removal technologies that could ostensibly prolong global reliance on fossil fuels, such as carbon capture and storage.
It remains to be seen whether or not the agreement’s signatories will actually follow through with the pledge’s stipulations. Lofty targets have been set at past UN climate conferences, only to be effectively ignored.
For example, at the 2021 summit, global leaders announced commitment to phasing down reliance on coal-fired power plants, but global coal demand is expected to remain at near-record levels in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency.
The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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He has spoken….
Okay, I’m encouraged then.
This is another excellent observation….
The lesson of fossil fuel advocates’ failure at COP 28: stop “Arguing to 0,” start “Arguing to 100”
Many fossil fuel advocates thought it would be clever to agree to COP 28’s “net zero by 2050” goal and then challenge a few of its implementation details. They were wrong.
Alex Epstein
Dec 1, 2023
https://alexepstein.substack.com/p/the-lesson-of-fossil-fuel-advocates
https://youtu.be/ShvHkif2vpI
I’ve a funny feeling I’ve been here before! Déja vue all over again? Oh yes – it was at Paris! Everyone agreed an Agreement there and it was non-binding as at Dubai and nobody did anything except for the UK which crashed its economy to no purpose.
Germany is starting to feel the effects of tis net zero nonsense.
I hope so.
Are you from Germany?
even if… 😀 I am, and JimK is right.
Was just curios if there are germans on this site.
Germany is well into the effects and digging deeper.
CDL, no we’ve been here many times. In 1993 there was Agenda 21, in 1998 there was the Kyoto Protocol, in 2007 it was the Bali Roadmap, in 2010 it was the Kyoto Extension Agreement. In 2015, it was the Paris Accord.
All of these supposed agreements came to nothing. They had no detectible effect on emissions. They had no detectible effect on climate events. They had no effect on temperatures.
It’s a remarkable thing that, in cahoots with a thoroughly corrupt and dishonest media, an unprecedented propaganda onslaught of more than three decades has produced so little effect on either climate or public attitude.
There has been one achievement: degrading the reputation of so-called climate scientists and that vast empty windbag Al “Manbearpig” Gore.
CO2 kept rising at the same rate, even after human CO2 was reduced by 6 percent, during the start of the pandemic in 2020. It didn’t even seem to make a bit of difference.
https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
According to the EIA, The United States has reduced it’s carbon dioxide output 26% since 1990. The global effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration has been nothing. NADA. Obviously, the solution is not working.
Saving the planet by reducing CO2 emissions unilaterally has been an abject failure and ALL the effort and cost so far has been for nothing. Those are the facts as the numbers don’t lie.
What is it called when you do the same thing over and over but expect different results?
“What is it called when you do the same thing over and over but expect different results?”
I think it’s called fraud when you know there won’t be a different result
Further to . There is not a chance that the inexorable rise in atmospheric CO2 will be checked, whether natural, man-made or a mix. So get used to it. It’s harmless but it may take a decade for that opinion to get round.
This makes it kinda hard for Kerry to claim success.
John Kerry Biden’s special envoy for climate says climate change is an existential crisis for life on Earth, so what does he do now?
Perhaps he could claim he was only joking.
He is a joke… unfortunately, with casualties.
He’ll find something. “COP28 was a complete success, I achieved a binding agreement with all other countries that the salad bar at COP29 will be phased down to a smaller size.”
He won the farting contest.
Maybe next year they’ll light them …….. make it a real contest
The UN can take a hike. Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.
Well don’t look at the UK, we don’t want it.
I think these roads to nowhere will never be built. COP 100 will probably pass another toothless agreement. Meanwhile, carbon marches on. I recently was in Coastal Chile, sitting in a great sea food restaurant (salmon and machas a la parmesana), and the sea breeze was a little chilly. No problem, they touched off a large pottery stove, the decorative kind common from Mexico. The fuel? Coal! And evidently a high grade as it did not smoke and produced a lot of heat. Chile passed a law (Framework Law On Climate Change 2022) specifying the route to Net Zero, and coal was identified as a no no. I almost felt like I was flying in a private jet to a COP!
Another global game of let’s pretend. Unfortunately, while the “phasing out of office fuels” thing is a mirage that will not happen in any foreseeable near future, it allows inept leaders to keep ignoring their actual duties to build up industry, energy systems and services that make for a better life for all.
There is also the Grand Solar Minimum that has just started.
Even NOAA has forecast that the Sunspot Number, which reflects solar output, will start dropping in 2025 until it hits zero in 2040 when their forecast ends.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/predicted-sunspot-number-and-radio-flux
As I have tried to tell you it’s a Solar Minimum – Grand Solar Minima last hundreds of years, this one’s expected duration is around 30 years so it is a Solar Minimum. Won’t affect the expected low temperatures, just how long it lasts.
Solar minimums only last a few years. We have one every 11 years now.
See https://solargsm.com/
NOAA forecasts it will last at least until 2040 when their forecast ends with the Sun at zero sunspots. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/predicted-sunspot-number-and-radio-flux
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_minimum#Grand_solar_minima_and_maxima
Has the UNhinged not heard of Taqiyya?
Oh dear
So, the Quran allows a little blasphemy if you are in fear of your life? Sort of like crossing your fingers behind your back when you lie to your 3rd grade teacher? I’m all in, and thanks for the new word of the day.
It allows lying and deception etc
Only to infidels.
You might also want to look up how the Hebrew people survived periids of persecution, especially in medieval Spain, by worshiping only in secret and hiding their beliefs. Also take into account the way that Catholics in England got through the persecution by hiding their beliefs and worshiping in secret. There probably are other examples you could find if you only looked.
How do you keep a RAM ♈ pickup a secret?
OH NOOOOOO!!!! Planting a trillion trees could lead to…..global warming! He sez he never said plant a trillion trees….trees in the wrong place can lead to forest fires and stuff…Nature will grow trees where the trees belong. see? So, plant a couple of trees….but not a trillion.
What’s the back-up plan that replaces crude oil?
The more than 6,000 products in our society are made from petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil did not exist 200 years ago.
Wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity but manufacture NOTHING for society.
If the world governments want to rid the earth of crude oil usage, what’s the back-up source that can manufacture refrigerators, tires, asphalt, X-Ray machines, iPhones, air conditioners, and the other 6,000 products that wind and solar CANNOT manufacture?
Without crude oil, there would be nothing that needs electricity !!!!!!
Again, What’s the back-up plan that replaces crude oil that will support the manufacturing of the products of our materialistic society?
“”Won’t Slow Their Oil Sales…””
The editor of Nature is not amused…
Magdalena Skipper, the editor in chief of the science journal Nature, said: “The science is clear – fossil fuels must go. World leaders will fail their people and the planet unless they accept this reality.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/14/failure-cop28-fossil-fuel-phase-out-devastating-say-scientists
No bias there. /sarc
DRILL BABY DRILL!
‘The science is clear’ does not mean what Nature thinks it means.
Some clear real science:
When human CO2 emissions were cut by 6%, according to the IEA, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were lockdowns and people were working from home the atmospheric CO2 kept rising at the same rate. Human emissions didn’t matter at all.
https://www.co2.earth/monthly-co2
Net zero is scientifically impossible.
not strictly true…if you don’t care what the consequences will be,!
““The science is clear – fossil fuels must go.”
She obviously knows nothing about human-caused climate change.
Head of Nature, huh? That explains a lot.
The coal industry should hold COP29 and the gas industry COP30.
I’m confused. Did something happen?
Well if you read the Grauniad article linked by @strativarius (12:59p.m.). It was a nothingburger.
OK, as you were. Smoke’m if you got’em.
Bume’m from your buddy if you don’t.
COP28 happened. Nature chief editor doesn’t like the fact that nothing of any consequence was accomplished, per usual. Waaaa!
We tend to overlook the real winners, like the high end hookers and their pimps. The guys who wholesale Wagyu beef. Champagne merchants. Charter jet brokers.
What ever happened to those BIG climate protests? We need another one so we can laugh at their hypocrisy.
In Glasgow, then COP was surrounded by leftist groupthink, so easy to get the usual suspects to show up to protest.
This year, not so much.
I reckon Helsinki is probably due one now – why not middle of January? 😈