OPEC States Want to Be Paid if Pollution Curbs Cut Oil Sales
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 16, 2000
At the latest round of international talks aimed at shaping a treaty on global warming, delegates from oil-producing countries insisted that any final accord include a commitment to compensate them if efforts to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases resulted in a drop in the use of oil.
The position of Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries at the two weeks of talks, which wound up last night in Lyon, France, was supported by many developing countries and by China. But it prompted strong criticism from other participants at the United Nation-sponsored talks, particularly because the move occurred against a backdrop of widespread protests and transportation disruptions in Europe over spiking oil prices.
''It's pretty ironic that while OPEC is raising oil prices, they're here asking for compensation,'' Jennifer Morgan, who heads the climate change program of the World Wildlife Fund, said from Lyon in a telephone interview.
The talks were aimed at resolving many differences among countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol but have not yet ratified it. The 1997 treaty is aimed at cutting emissions from industrialized countries of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases to levels about 5 percent below 1990 levels.
The overwhelming source of carbon dioxide is the burning of oil, coal and other fossil fuels.
Since the first rounds of talks on a climate treaty -- in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 -- Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and other OPEC members have repeatedly pressed for compensation for countries that produce or sell oil and coal. Those countries have often used other tactics to stall progress, critics said, including making frequent objections over negotiating procedures that have stalled sessions.
They continued such efforts in Lyon, participants said, despite fuel shortages and protests that disrupted taxicab and bus service for a few days at the peak of the conference. Some representatives of industrialized countries said they were determined to fight language that would provide payments to oil producers.
OPEC members said they, too, were prepared to fight. Muhammad al-Sabban, head of the Saudi delegation and senior economic adviser to the Saudi Oil Ministry, said the movement toward a climate treaty was a clear sign that the world continued to accelerate its shift away from fossil fuels.
''We are assuming that only for another 15 years, maximum, will we have oil as a big share of the energy mix,'' he said. ''We are very concerned about this.''
For all its prosperity, he said, Saudi Arabia will still need help in developing new industries and job sources for its growing population.
Mr. Sabban said a large coalition of developing countries was ready to reject the treaty language if industrialized nations rejected the idea of compensating countries whose economies were harmed.
''I'm surprised to see that developed countries expect they can get away with the things they want without giving equal treatment to what we want,'' he said in a telephone interview.
The dispute over whether oil-rich countries should be compensated if the world weans itself off petroleum was just one of many sharp splits among participants. The group focused on refining language in the proposed treaty before foreign ministers convene in November in The Hague to negotiate final points. Participants and observers from some environmental groups said some progress had been made on streamlining language so that ministers would have fewer points to negotiate.
But strong divisions persist over how to damp the greenhouse effect, with the United States, Russia and other large forested countries pressing recently to receive credit not just for cutting emissions of gases, but also for sopping them up by growing more trees or changing farming methods in ways that pull carbon dioxide from the air.
Europe has opposed that strategy, instead seeking firm commitments to reduce the output of gases from smokestacks and tailpipes. Other points of contention include proposed mechanisms through which wealthy countries could lead poor countries to avoid sharp rises in emissions as their economies grow, and ways to create a fair system to measure cuts and enforce an agreement.
Over all, many negotiators and observers at the conference said in telephone interviews that they felt confident that a meaningful document would emerge by November.