Saudis blocking deal on fossil fuel

Oppose calling for a phaseout

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — 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.

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.

Saudi diplomats have been particularly skillful at blocking discussions and slowing the talks, according to interviews with a dozen people who have been inside closed-door negotiations. Tactics include inserting words into draft agreements that are considered poison pills by other countries; slow-walking a provision meant to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a walkout in a side meeting; and refusing to sit down with negotiators pressing for a phaseout of fossil fuels.

The Saudi opposition is significant because UN rules require that any agreement forged at the climate summit be unanimously endorsed. Any one of the 198 participating nations can thwart a deal.

Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country raising concerns about more ambitious global efforts to fight climate change. The United States has sought to inject caveats into the fossil fuel phaseout language. India and China have opposed language that would single out coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels. Iran and Russia have pushed for provisions to protect natural gas. And many nations, such as Iraq, have raised concerns that ending oil and gas could devastate countries that depend on fossil fuels for income and have asked for more financial support from wealthier countries.

But Saudi Arabia has stood out as the most implacable opponent of any agreement on fossil fuels.

Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.

If nations do agree in Dubai to phase out fossil fuels, or even phase them down, it would be a historic moment. Past UN climate deals have shied away from mentioning the words “fossil fuels,” let alone contemplating a phaseout.

But the dynamics appear to have shifted this year, the hottest in recorded history. 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 end. Aided by Europe, they have made a “fossil fuel phaseout” their top goal at the talks, known as COP28.

Also this past weekend, a longtime stand-off that had turned the choice for next year’s climate talks into a melodrama and mystery resolved as part of a prisoner swap settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It set the stage for the COP29 climate talks in 2024 to be in a city where one of the world’s first oil fields developed 1,200 years ago: Baku, Azerbaijan.

It also means that for back-toback years, an oil powerhouse nation will be hosting climate talks.