Saudi Arabia threatens to block key UN climate report

Incheon: Oil giant Saudi Arabia is seeking to block the adoption of a key UN climate change report unless a passage highlighting the inadequacy of national carboncutting pledges is removed or altered, multiple sources told AFP. Already in overtime, a meeting of the 195-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Incheon, South Korea, is vetting a major report that traces pathways for limiting global warming to 1.5 deg C.

Most of these scenarios involve a sharp reduction in the use of fossil fuels - Saudi Arabia’s key export.

“We are very concerned that a single country is threatening to hold up adoption of the IPCC Special Report if scientific findings are not changed or deleted according to its demands,” said an informed observer who asked not to be named.

The source, along with two other persons with direct knowledge of the situation, identified the country as Saudi Arabia.

“This has become a battle between Saudi Arabia, a rich oil producer, and small island states threatened with extinction,” said another participant at the meeting, who also requested anonymity.

“The report hangs in the balance,” the meeting’s chair said on Saturday (Oct 6) - a day after talks were due to end - before convening an emergency huddle of the IPCC’s half-dozen vice-chairs, according to someone in the room.

An e-mail to Saudi officials seeking comment was not answered, and delegates at the closed-door meeting were not accessible. The underlying 500-page report being reviewed in Incheon - based on 6000 peer-reviewed studies - is a collaborative effort of the world’s top climate scientists.