Today two countries from the Middle East tried their very hardest to be the worst here at the UN climate talks in Bonn. Saudi Arabia and Qatar took home the ‘Fossil of the Day’ awards on the first Monday of the second week for some dubious positions that seem to put their oil interests above the interests of our planet…..
The first place fossil went to Saudi Arabia. In discussions on the loss and damage work programme, Saudi Arabia argued that the Parties did not need to agree its activities until COP18 – 18 months from now! The Cancun Agreements established a work programme to enable Parties to take a decision on loss and damage itself – not the work programme. Debating the activities of a work programme for 18 months is akin to debating an agenda for 18 months…and we’ve seen enough debates on agendas.
The (2nd) place fossil goes to Qatar for suggesting that they should get compensated for the tax that developed countries add onto Qatari oil. At the Joint SBSTA/SBI Meeting on Impact of the implementation of response measure, Qatar presented a graph and emphasised that taxes in developed countries add more to the selling price of oil than their wholesale price. For example in UK oil initial price is $200 and the tax is $ 850 that sums to be $1,050. Then Qatar had the gall to suggest that if developed countries were to give the tax amount to Qatar, then Qatar is happy to provide the Oil for free. This tax money should clearly be spent on developing green alternatives to carbon based transport and to deal with the problems that carbon based transport create – health, environmental etc – not to compensate oil producing countries. Any potential future COP host would know that (hint hint).
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The Adopt a Negotiator Editorial team is made up of Global Campaign for Climate Action staff and lovely volunteers.
