Paul Handley Yahoo News 24 Jan 10;
RIYADH (AFP) – Global climate talks are biased against oil and pose a "scary" threat to Saudi Arabia's economy, a top official said on Sunday, defending Riyadh's stance on efforts to harness greenhouse gas emissions.
Mohammed al-Sabban, the country's top climate negotiator, said negotiations on emissions controls saw Saudi Arabia, for decades the world's leading oil exporter, effectively targeted by "certain" industrialised countries while letting their own subsidized coal, nuclear and biofuel industries off the hook.
He also said that after the watered-down resolutions at the December UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, climate negotiations were deadlocked.
"There was no real agreement in Copenhagen and I don't foresee any agreement in the near term," Sabban told AFP in an interview.
"No one has submitted a burden-sharing agreement" that treats various parties equitably, he said.
"We are facing the same deadlock as the Doha round of the WTO," the World Trade Organisation, he said of long-stuck global trade agreement negotiations.
Environmentalists at the Copenhagen summit last month labelled Saudi Arabia and China the culprits that prevented a strong agreement obliging countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Ahead of the conference, Sabban and Oil Minister Ali Naimi said that Saudi Arabia, which depends on oil revenues for about 75 percent of government spending, should be compensated for losses caused by any pact that forced a sharp reduction in global oil consumption.
Environmentalists mocked their argument, but it reflected deep Saudi concern over anti-oil bias in the proposed emissions controls, Sabban said on Sunday on the sidelines of the Global Competitiveness Forum in Riyadh.
He said the proposals did not equally address coal, nuclear, biofuel and other energy sources that also generate harmful emissions and other problems but were protected by their home countries.
"If any energy product should be hit hard, it should be coal," he said.
He also explained Riyadh's criticisms of energy independence drives in countries like the United States, which he labelled a "phobia."
Such programmes, together with strong controls on emissions from burning petroleum, would deal a devastating blow to the Saudi economy.
"If all countries take steps to reduce dependency, then definitely this will impact the demand for oil. That is very scary for us," he said.
Sabban cited research from the International Energy Agency, which forecast a loss of four trillion dollars in potential oil sales by OPEC countries during 2008-2030 if aggressive carbon emissions reduction targets were implemented.
But the same study still says that overall OPEC income will increase sharply over the previous 22-year period.
Economists say the Saudis are particularly worried about the mixed signals they are getting and how that relates to the need for long-term planning in oil and gas exploration and production.
Even now, said Sabban, Riyadh is being encouraged to sustain investment in oil to support the global economy.
"If there is a continued need for increasing investment, and at the same time they are saying 'we don't want your oil,' that's a contradiction," said the US-trained economist.
He admitted that climate change was already hurting his mostly parched, desert country as it was others -- with higher temperatures, falling water tables and a surge in violent sandstorms and flash floods.
Sabban said Riyadh supports an "equitable" climate pact, but not what had been laid out so far.
"We are going to be impacted by both climate change and the response measures," he said.
He said Saudi Arabia was investing heavily in solar energy, hoping eventually to tap its sunny skies and open desert to become a major exporter of sun-generated clean energy.
