this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
367 points (99.2% liked)

World News

49743 readers
3329 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels — the oil, gas and coal that, when burned, create emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

all 22 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 67 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Is there a legitimate reason why « we » globally care about their opinion ?

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 43 points 2 years ago

The Saudis own entire economies. They aren't even listed on the world's richest people because they own the mechanism that those people operate in.

[–] TurboDiesel@lemmy.world 34 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They'll just start funding more terrorist organizations and attacks à la 9/11. The Saudis are no one's friends and the world would do well to remember that.

[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 22 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

They produce a lot of oil, they can easily influence oil prices, and thereby influence elections.

Piss off the Saudis, they reduce output, prices go up, idiots everywhere vote for the other guy who's willing to suck their dick.

Eg. 2022 US midterms they used oil as a weapon against the democrats, losing them the house.

[–] a4ng3l@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

True but eventually there will be an alternative to oil and that day they can go back to trading camels. There power is relatively new and won’t last. It’s so weird to piss everyone off in the meantime.

[–] anlumo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

The concept of money is built in a way that once you have a lot of it, it doesn’t go away any more.

[–] hh93@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

One more reason for renewables so sucking the dicks of dictators can't help you win elections as easy as that

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 years ago

The rules on the talks require consensus, and the president of the talks is an oil executive from another petrostate and likely to interpret a requirement for consensus as a requirement for unanimity

[–] Neato@kbin.social 37 points 2 years ago

Stop including SA in climate talks. Diversify or die.

[–] doublejay1999@lemmy.world 33 points 2 years ago

When your economy is made of 1 sector.

[–] klisklas@feddit.de 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't understand why a unanimous final statement is so important for the COP. Making big compromises to appease OPEC will send a devastating signal to the people in Europe, America and so on. This will accelerate the loss of trust in politics in these countries. Why not let the talks fail and announce a big multilateral agreement the next day uniting the Americas, Europe and China? This will send a strong message and will bring us forward in climate politics.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Saudi Arabia is taking the fall for the other oil-producing nations (or the corporations that own those nations), allowing them all to ignore climate change entirely. This way they can all point to Saudi Arabia and say, "Blame them, not us! We did everything we could, but Saudi Arabia just wouldn't let us come to an agreement. Oh, well. Too bad. Maybe next time."

COP28 is a fake climate conference led by oil billionaires and fossil fuel execs. Their only goal is to exert control on the global messaging around climate change. They will never agree to meaningful change. We need to be calling it out as the charade it is and demand a legitimate conference that excludes fossil fuel execs and billionaires entirely. There is no "self-regulation". They need to be regulated by force of laws, not empty promises and fake climate summits.

[–] klisklas@feddit.de 2 points 2 years ago

COP28 is a fake climate conference led by oil billionaires and fossil fuel execs.

That's my point, just let it fail and prepare an agreement without the oil execs. Multilateral agreements happen all the time, why should COP be the only possibility to make climate politics happen?

[–] HuddaBudda@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It makes sense that they would take the position. It is just odd that the effects of global warming hasn't hit their populations either.

How long could they insulate their populations from the worst of it?

[–] aodhsishaj@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

For as long as the rest of the world is subsidizing their public works

[–] Hegar@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago

They don't need to insulate the population, just the ruling house and the oil sector. The rest of the country is basically disposable, that's the nature of the resource curse.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming, negotiators and other officials said.

A group of nations led by small islands, whose countries are most vulnerable to sea level rise and other climate-fueled extreme weather events, want the summit to adopt a formal statement that the era of coal, oil and natural gas should soon come to an end.

In particular, oil- and gas-rich nations in the Persian Gulf appear to view the challenge to the future of fossil fuels, a resource that has brought their governments and royal families extraordinary wealth, as a threat as existential as climate change itself.

Frustrated Saudis often point out that oil production in the United States is surging and that, during the energy crisis brought on by the war in Ukraine, some European countries turned to coal-fired power plants.

Despite decades of trying to break the so-called “resource curse,” Saudi Arabia remains highly dependent on revenue from fossil fuels to sustain its economy, its government budget and its political stability.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is spending tens of billions of dollars to try to diversify the Saudi economy, investing in industries like renewable energy, tourism, entertainment and artificial intelligence.


The original article contains 1,593 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 85%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I mean, the world economy moving away from petroleum-based fuels would make them mostly geopolitically irrelevant (the exception being that Mecca is (currently) in Saudi Arabia), so this isn’t terribly surprising.