The oil princes of Saudi Arabia became literal beggars at the United Nations climate talks that began at Bangkok on September 28. The oil kingdom demanded that they, along with other OPEC member nations, receive subsidies for revenues to be lost due to potential global warming.
Speaking on October 8, Mohammad S. Al Sabban, who led the Saudi delegation at the talks, claimed that a report by the International Energy Agency on OPEC revenues was seriously skewed. According to the IEA, OPEC revenues would still increase by more than $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030. This is four times the amount revenues increased between 1985 and 2007. Al Sabban said of Saudi Arabia “We are among the economically vulnerable countries,…This is very serious for us. He went on to say “We are in the process of diversifying our economy but this will take a long time. We don’t have too many resources.”
Al Sabban sees dark motivations on the part of the West and a supposed silent war being waged against oil producing states. Said the delegate, “Many politicians in the Western world think these climate change negotiations and the new agreement will provide them with a golden opportunity to reduce their dependence on imported oil…That means you will transfer the burdens to developing countries, especially those dependent on the exploitation of oil.” Moreover, said Al Sabban, the IEA figures are "biased" and asserted that OPEC's calculations showed that Saudi Arabia would lose $19 billion a year starting in 2012 under a new climate pact.
Some observers noted that oil consuming nations received no such subsidies in 2008 when oil prices reached $150 per barrel. The Arab environmental group IndyACT and Germanwatch stated that Saudi Arabia is holding up negotiations by insisting that a provision be included for oil producing countries. “Despite the variability in the region, the current Arab position is mainly focused around protecting the oil trade rather than saving the planet form the adverse impacts of climate change,” said Wael Hmaidan, the executive director of IndyACT.
There is broad consensus among the countries involved in the talks that any new pact should include provisions to avoid global temperature increases of more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial levels — the threshold at which serious climate change will ensue. That would require emissions cuts from industrial countries of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, far above the 15 to 23 percent cuts rich countries have offered so far. It would also require developing countries to scale back their emissions.
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Iran's Trade Promotion Organization has also said that it plans to “completely exclude the US dollar from the country's foreign revenues and reserves.” The Islamic Republic is encouraging Japan to substitute the US dollar with the yen in all oil transactions with Iran, according to Iranian media outlets. Iran is also considering using the euro and United Arab Emirates' dirham as alternates to the US dollar for oil revenues.
Author Edwin Black predicted last year in his book The Plan, that in any showdown over Iran ’s nuclear ambitions, Tehran could frustrate America ’s oil supply by launching a “dollar war.” If America cannot use its own currency to purchase oil, oil will become more expensive and could become dramatically less accessible, wrote Black.
Adam Abrams of The Cutting Edge News contributed to this report.
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