Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the U.N. climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to demand a phase-out of fossil fuels to combat global warming, according to negotiators and other officials said.
The Saudi delegation has strongly opposed any language in an agreement that would even mention fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal, the burning of which produces emissions that dangerously heat the planet. Saudi negotiators have also raised objections to a provision endorsed by at least 118 countries that aims to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.
Saudi diplomats have been particularly adept at blocking discussions and slowing talks, according to interviews with a dozen people who took part in closed-door negotiations. Tactics include inserting words into draft treaties that are viewed by other countries as poison pills; slow walking, a provision intended to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a strike in a side meeting; and refusing to sit down with negotiators pushing for a phase-out of fossil fuels.
The Saudi opposition is significant because UN rules require that any agreement reached at the climate summit must be adopted unanimously. Any of the 198 participating nations can thwart a deal.
Saudi Arabia is not the only country to raise concerns about more ambitious global efforts to combat climate change. The United States has tried to build caveats into the language of fossil fuel phase-out. India and China have opposed language that would single out coal, the most polluting of all fossil fuels. Iran and Russia have pushed for regulations to protect natural gas. And many countries, such as Iraq, have expressed concerns that phasing out oil and gas production could have devastating consequences for countries that depend on fossil fuels for income and have asked for more financial support from wealthier countries.
But Saudi Arabia has emerged as the most implacable opponent of a fossil fuel deal.
“Most countries differ on the scale or speed at which you phase out fossil fuels,” said Linda Kalcher, a former United Nations climate adviser who was in the negotiating rooms this week. Saudi Arabia, she said, “doesn’t even want to have the conversation.”
Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.
If the nations in Dubai actually agreed to phase out or even eliminate fossil fuels, it would be a historic moment. Previous UN climate agreements have shied away from mentioning the words “fossil fuels,” let alone considering a phase-out.
But the dynamic appears to have changed this year, the hottest in history. A group of nations led by small islands whose countries are most vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate-related extreme weather events want the summit to adopt a formal declaration that the age of coal, oil and natural gas should soon end End. With the support of Europe, they made “phasing out fossil fuels” their top goal at the talks known as COP28.
The debate was extremely controversial. The oil- and gas-rich countries of the Persian Gulf, in particular, appear to view the challenge to the future of fossil fuels, a resource that has brought extraordinary wealth to their governments and royal families, as an existential threat as much as climate change itself.
“It would be unacceptable for politically motivated campaigns to endanger the prosperity and future of our people,” Haitham Al-Ghais, secretary general of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, warned his member countries last week. He called on them to reject any text that targets fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia is the most influential country within the OPEC cartel. Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's energy minister, recently said his country would “absolutely” not support an agreement to phase out fossil fuels.
This stance is more adamant than that of Saudi Arabia's neighbor, the United Arab Emirates, another major oil and gas producer. Sultan Al Jaber, the Emirati official and oil executive who led the talks, said the transition away from fossil fuels was “inevitable” but needed to be managed carefully.
Saudi Arabia and a number of oil companies have sought to focus the conversation on emissions rather than fossil fuels themselves, arguing that technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) could capture and bury greenhouse gases from oil and gas and allow them to continue use.
But other world leaders and most environmentalists say the best way to reduce emissions is to switch to cleaner forms of energy such as solar, wind or nuclear, and to reserve carbon capture for rare situations where alternatives are not available .
“The reality we have to face is that we have to phase out fossil fuels, period,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU climate commissioner. “We can’t get ourselves out of the problem.”
Things are even more combative in the negotiating rooms, according to negotiators and others who have asked to remain anonymous so they can describe the closed-door discussions.
They all described the Arab bloc of states led by Saudi Arabia at the United Nations using procedural tactics to delay and prevent a fossil fuel deal.
Several people described Saudi diplomats giving long speeches that took up most of the time at meetings. They also said Saudi negotiators had argued that the 2015 Paris climate agreement called for emissions reductions without mentioning specific energy sources and that nations should not go beyond that original mandate.
Three negotiators also said Saudi Arabia had worked to delay the adoption of a text setting targets to protect countries from the impacts of climate change. The three said Saudi Arabia did not necessarily reject the provision based on its merits. But, negotiators said, if developing countries don't see progress in adaptation, they may not be willing to commit to a broader deal that includes a phase-out of fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia also insists that the phrase “common but differentiated responsibilities” be included in several parts of the text. The term refers to the principle that wealthy countries should do more to curb climate change because they have been polluting the environment for the longest time. But the United States and Europe reject that language because they say it has been used in U.N. forums to ease pressure on wealthy emerging economies like China and wealthy Gulf states, which are technically considered developing countries.
Saudi Arabia's insistence on including the sentence amounts to a “pure delaying tactic,” a European negotiator said.
The Saudi-led Arab bloc walked out of a meeting on finance on Sunday, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“They are using dirty tricks to halt progress in phasing out fossil fuels,” said Jake Schmidt, the senior strategic director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.
Saudi Arabia has a long history of throwing sand in the gears of climate negotiations. In fact, one reason the UN climate panel works by consensus and any country can block an agreement is that Saudi Arabia called for these rules at the first climate summit in 1992 and has fought to maintain them ever since.
The Saudi delegation is dominated by members of the country's energy ministry, which has close ties to state oil company Saudi Aramco. Just last year, it joined Russia in pushing to remove a reference to “human-caused climate change” from a UN scientific document, effectively calling into question the scientific fact that burning fossil fuels causes climate change.
Saudi officials have argued in the past that phasing out fossil fuels is unrealistic, calling the idea a form of moral high ground by countries that appear unable to keep their promises. Frustrated Saudis often point out that oil production in the United States is surging and that some European countries have switched to coal-fired power plants during the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine.
In 2021, Prince Abdulaziz, the Saudi energy minister, described the International Energy Agency's strategy as a fantasy, calling for nations to reach a point where they would no longer emit emissions into the atmosphere by 2050. He compared it to a sequel to the musical film “La La Land.”
Despite decades of attempts to break the so-called “resource curse,” Saudi Arabia remains heavily reliant on fossil fuel revenues to maintain its economy, national budget and political stability.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is spending tens of billions of dollars to diversify the Saudi economy, investing in industries such as renewable energy, tourism, entertainment and artificial intelligence.
Paradoxically, that means the government needs oil revenues to fund its plans for life after oil, analysts say. Officials expect budget deficits every year through 2026, partly due to a decline in oil revenues.
Saudi officials often say they see no contradiction between transitioning to a future focused on renewable energy, combating climate change and continuing to export the kingdom's oil, which they and other major oil producers believe the world still needs will require energy for many years, if not forever, then for petrochemicals.
At COP28, visitors to Saudi Arabia's exhibition will be greeted by an illuminated green sign that proclaims: “Here we write the future.” A striking panoramic projection of desert-planted forests and business owners happy to talk about green initiatives underscore the message : This is the new Saudi Arabia.
But the question, analysts say, is whether the Saudi diplomats in the rooms are willing to deviate from their old positions.
Somini Sengupta, Jenny Gross and Max Bearak reported from Dubai.