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.
Is there a legitimate reason why « we » globally care about their opinion ?
The Saudis own entire economies. They aren’t even listed on the world’s richest people because they own the mechanism that those people operate in.
They’ll just start funding more terrorist organizations and attacks à la 9/11. The Saudis are no one’s friends and the world would do well to remember that.
Yeah. And yet it’s one of the very few places where USA aren’t exporting a lot of freedom…
The USA are exporting the most freedomy freedom conceivable to the Saudis, 350 billion USD of cold hard freedom to be exact.
They produce a lot of oil, they can easily influence oil prices, and thereby influence elections.
Piss off the Saudis, they reduce output, prices go up, idiots everywhere vote for the other guy who’s willing to suck their dick.
Eg. 2022 US midterms they used oil as a weapon against the democrats, losing them the house.
True but eventually there will be an alternative to oil and that day they can go back to trading camels. There power is relatively new and won’t last. It’s so weird to piss everyone off in the meantime.
The concept of money is built in a way that once you have a lot of it, it doesn’t go away any more.
One more reason for renewables so sucking the dicks of dictators can’t help you win elections as easy as that
money?
More legitimate ?
Iran Scary.
That’s always the reason.
Iran? What’s the deal with them? They seem rather tame compared to a lot of other shitholes.
Saudi Arabia is western aligned because they oppose Iran - Iran has always been viewed as more dangerous to America… ever since they kicked out the British backed Shah in 1979.
There’s also oil, but both countries had oil… but one stayed a monarchy while the other became a theocracy and then kind of democracy. Instead of supporting the democratic transition away from a theocracy America, of course, backed the monarchy.
If that doesn’t gel with your expectations about America and spreading freedom and whatnot bear in mind… Kissinger.
Monarchies are way easier to control than democracies, so this isn’t surprising.
You can see that with Russia, it took them an ungodly amount of money and decades of propaganda to take over the Western democracies.
The rules on the talks require consensus, and the president of the talks is an oil executive from another petrostate and likely to interpret a requirement for consensus as a requirement for unanimity