Crossposted at Square State and PRAER.org
There is one disturbing diary up now about Saudi Arabia and here is one more.
It turns out that Saudi Arabia has convinced Qatar and Kuwait to join together to block a U.N. Climate Change study, in an apparent effort to protect their Oil Based Economy.
While there has been an orchestrated effort by Fossil Fuel lobbyists to weaken international Climate Change legislation, this is the first time a state Government has openly blocked reforms.
The immediate losers are the people who are members of A.O.S.I.S. -- the Alliance of Small Island States -- and what they have to lose by this action.
It is no secret that Saudi Arabia would stand to lose a significant chunk of change if a Climate Study concluded that greenhouse gases created by Oil were going to cause the disappearance of low lying islands.
This is disappointing because while the European Union, Australia and New Zealand joined in support of AOSIS' efforts, the United States remained on the sidelines, quietly agreeing through silence with Saudi Arabia's efforts.
The United States' endless addiction to Oil, fed by our transportation sector, stands in the way of change to an all electric fleet and high speed rail which would help mitigate the already dangerous sea level rise that islanders face.
Hat tip to Dr. Rolph Payet:
Saudi Arabia on Thursday blocked a call by vulnerable island states at climate
talks for a study into the impact of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming, delegates said.The appeal came from the Association of Small Island States (AOSIS), gathering low-lying islands in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which is lobbying hard for the UN climate arena not to abandon the 1.5 C target.
The goal is receding as emissions of greenhouse gases rise and political problems for tackling climate change multiply.
AOSIS, supported by the European Union (EU), Australia and New Zealand, called for a technical report on the cost of reaching the 1.5 C target and the consequences of breaching it.
But it was thwarted by Saudi Arabia, with support from Kuwait and Qatar, under the UN's consensus rule, the sources said.
Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers argue that ratcheting up action on carbon emissions will hurt their revenues as fossil-fuel consumers switch to cleaner energy. "Some small island states could become stateless from sea level rise, which is why they are calling for global temperature rise to be kept below 1.5 C," added Wendel Trio of Greenpeace.
"That Saudi Arabia, a country with such obvious oil interests, exploited the UN consensus rule to stop the world's most vulnerable countries from getting a much-needed summary of the latest climate science is breathtaking for its criminal disregard for the human impacts of climate change."
As I have made the case before, only when citizens realize that the way they power their cars is directly causing the loss of entire ways of life, will they demand change. Unfortunately, while we failed to convince people at Copenhagen, the BP oil spill and the planet itself is showing the limits of what she can withstand.
I also humbly ask you to do the following: