Saudis Plan Net-Zero Emissions

Arabia pledged to reduce its net carbon emissions to zero by 2060 ahead of a United Nations climate summit, as one of the world’s top oil producers resists calls to cut investment in new oil-and-gas development. The kingdom plans to cut carbon emissions by over 270 million tons a year, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a prerecorded address to a climate forum in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is set to invest more than $186 billion to achieve that goal, he said. Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia on Sunday in aiming to reach netzero carbon emissions by 2060. John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, traveled to Saudi Arabia over the weekend for private meetings. He is to speak on Monday alongside Crown Prince Mohammed at the Riyadh summit gathering of Middle East heads of state to discuss strategies to meet the impact of climate change in the region, including cutting emissions. The Saudi target is less ambitious than those of the International Energy Agency, a group representing industrialized energy consumers, and the U.K.-led COP26 climate-talks presidency, which are both recommending reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. It also doesn’t include emissions from the massive amounts of oil Saudi Arabia exports around the world for energy use by countries like China and In dia. The kingdom pumps about one in 10 barrels of oil consumed each day in the world. “The world’s largest oil exporter becoming a net-zero economy, the optics of it look strange,” said Ben Cahill, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These two things are not mutually exclusive: You can both decarbonize your oil and gas production and reduce economywide carbon emissions, and still be a really large oil and gas exporter.” The Saudi economy remains heavily dependent on revenue from oil and gas sales, despite an aggressive public campaign to diversify away from fossil fuel. More recently, Riyadh has redoubled its commitment to those exports, investing to produce even more crude. Saudi Arabia is also pushing fellow oil producers to present a united front and oppose rising calls for a reduction in fossil-fuel investment ahead of the COP26 summit that kicks off Oct. 31 in Glasgow, Scotland. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman has argued that the IEA’s 2050 target would reduce supply before global demand drops significantly, risking an oil-price superspike and unfairly burdening economies that are overly dependent on importing or exporting oil and gas. Oil-producing countries have emerged as a formidable group that is resisting what they describe as an unrealistic push by rich nations to limit fossil-fuel investment as a way of lowering greenhouse-gas emissions. Saudi Arabia has said it is committed to investing in its oil fields to expand production and has no plans to curb such spending, people familiar with its position said. Prince Abdulaziz said Saturday Saudi Arabia may hit the target before 2060 but it chose that year because U.N. experts expect most climate technoloWORLD NEWS gies won’t mature before 2040. “We need to have that time and that space to allow us to do this properly,” Prince Abdulaziz said. “The 2060 (target) will enable us to have a smooth and viable transition without risking economic or social impacts.” Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based consulting firm Qamar Energy, said the 2060 target was reasonable for Saudi Arabia given the challenge it faces as one of the world’s top oil exporters. “It gives them the moral upper ground: We are now part of the solution, not the problem,” he said. —Benoit Faucon contributed to this article.