Over 70 delegates representing 37 Parliaments and Legislatures of Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries met at the Houses of Parliament in London from July 5-11 for a timely “International Parliamentary Conference on Climate: Countdown to Copenhagen”. At the end of the conference, a 10-point Communiqué was issued. Two members of the Majlis-e-Shoura of Saudi Arabia, Abdul Malik Al-Khayal and Majid Al-Moneef, along with their two aides, attended the conference. Saudi Gazette's Mozammel Haque interviewed Abdulmalik Al-Khayal on July 10. Q – What are Saudi Arabia's concerns on climate change? A – Saudi Arabia and the other oil producers are ready to positively engage and be part of any agreed outcome, and there is full recognition by IPCC and others, supported by many studies, that oil producers stand to suffer the most from climate change mitigation policies, and the oil producing developing countries should not be impacted with more economic burden in an unfair manner, and finally articles and decisions in any agreed outcome must be put in place to protect the interest of Saudi Arabia and other oil producers. (Burden-sharing agreement). There is a study on Saudi Arabian welfare conducted by Charles River in 2007, and also the reports of our negotiators to the climate change conferences, for example, Dr. Sabban who always stresses that Saudi Arabia is one of the oil producers that should not bear the heaviest burden of climate mitigation policies. Distortions already exist in the market against oil in the form of heavy taxation on oil under the name of the environment and the subsidies for coal from some countries like Japan, Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom which is more polluting to the atmosphere, and for nuclear, which has far more dangerous impacts on our environment. Many OECD countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy make more revenue from oil tax than producers make from oil sales. Q – What are the impacts of climate mitigation policies? A – Dr. Sabban, adviser to the Ministry of Petroleum, and Dr. Almoneef, my colleague to the conference, and myself noted that the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports reported: “Emission Constraints in developed countries have well-established spill-over effects on developing countries. And the analysis report also shows reduction in both projected GDP and reduction in projected oil revenue for oil exporting developing countries” and that the “energy intensity and the carbon intensity of the economies will decline. The coal and oil industries are expected to lose substantial proportions of their traditional output relative to those in the reference scenarios.” Rivers' Study in 2007 on Saudi Arabia welfare shows these policies have different impacts, ranging from small impacts within 5 percent or lower for the individual policies evaluated alone, and when modeling hybrid policy scenarios, the impacts become more adverse. All the way to levels over 20 percent reduction of welfare. Q – What are your impressions about this week-long conference? A – I told the audience at the closing day of the conference that I have attended many conferences over the past 44 years, and I did not find a single conference that was so short: we did not have the time to read or think. Lectures were given without having abstracts to be read before each lecture, because most of the lectures were given by politicians not scientists. Q – On July 10, the conference issued a communiqué that was unanimously approved. What is your comment on the communiqué? A – The Communiqué, by and large, is okay, but I told the organizers that the Majlis-e-Shoura's approval comes after one of our negotiators see the communiqué. So I sent it through our embassy in London to our Ministry of Petroleum to check the wording. I am not a lawyer, and a word or a letter some time could make a problem. So to be on the safe side and not to interfere with our negotiators I sent it to them for approval. Q – Do you think technology may be the answer to climate change problems? A – Yes technology is the answer, besides other strategies. For example, carbon capture and storage lead to high mitigation potential (up to 55% of CO2 emissions until 2100). Do not forget renewable energy like solar, wind, and hydro – their overall share is 4-5% of the energy mix, and the dominant role of fossil fuels to continue at about 80% of the energy mix. Since the early 70s, actual energy use would have been 50% more if it was not for conservation and efficiency improvements as many authors suggested. Also do not forget forestation, i.e., increasing the number of trees in the world by planting more and more trees, especially the ones that bear fruit, to feed the poor, to consume CO2, and increase oxygen. Q – What are Saudi Arabia's efforts in this respect? A – On Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Saudi Arabia, as you know, is an active member in the CSLF, and other partnership such as the Four Kingdoms' Initiative (Saudi Arabia, the UK, Norway, and Netherlands). (It has) conducted workshops and conferences in the country on CCS. On solar energy, Saudi Arabia has a solar village project, solar powered water desalination projects, and solar water heating project. The KAUST has a 2MW solar power plant. This is besides energy efficiency and saving, zero flaring from normal oil and gas operations, and cleaner fuels and unleaded gasoline. (Also), do not forget the promotion of environmental research and research on cleaner oil and the high research priority of solar energy in the Kingdom. Saudi Arabia has established King Abdullah University of Science and Technology besides the existing 21 universities and King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Advanced Research Center. Saudi Arabia has also partnerships with many international research centers and institutions. Q – As a representative for Saudi Arabia, what was your input and proposal to the conference? A – As a geologist who taught paleoclimate change in the past geological ages, I stressed that climate change has occurred in the past and it is not a new phenomenon dealing with industrial ages. I told the conference that large continental ice-sheets in the Northern Hemisphere have grown and retreated many times in the past. Times with large ice-sheets are known as glacial periods with colder climate (or ice ages) and times without large ice-sheets are interglacial periods with warmer climate. The most recent glacial period occurred between 120,000 and 11,500 years ago. Since then, earth has been in an interglacial period (warmer period) called the Holocene or the recent. Usually politicians do not listen to what sciences tell us, but they listen to what they want to hear even if it was crap. (The Saudi delegation also stressed on forestation.) Since people are not interested in planting forest trees, governments should subsidise fruit trees and make it law that every individual should plant at least 15 fruit trees in his life time. The individual will benefit from eating and selling the excess fruits, and the environment will benefit from the oxygen produced and also from the absorption of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere. The other point I stressed was the concept of volunteerism. Each community in a village or town or country should have volunteers standing by in case any disaster were to happen. Q – I heard you reminding the audience about Saudi Arabia's generosity and aid to the poor in the world, when an African delegate commented about petroleum countries getting richer. A – Yes, I was frustrated that most of the world does not know about the Saudi government's aid and help in every occasion and disaster that happens in the world. For example, they did not believe about the $500 million King Abdullah gave to the World Bank to feed the poor in the world. One country, Saudi Arabia, God bless its King and its people, gave $500 million out of the $750 million that the World Bank needed! This is one example from the hundreds of examples of the Kingdom's generosity. God help our new Minister of Information to make that known to every child and grown
