BY KYLA MANDEL AND BRENDAN MONTAGUE IN PARIS

Oil rich Saudi Arabia is leading a campaign to sabotage attempts by countries on the front line of climate change to include an ambitous 1.5C target for global warming in the COP21 agreement currently being negotiated in Paris. 

Wealthy nations – including Germany, France and now the United States – have all signalled support for including references to the lower target in the final text, as negotiators reach the end of the first week of negotiations.

The oil producing giant last night blocked efforts to include references in the Paris deal to a UN report that says it would be better to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels rather than the current 2C target.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate and Development, argues that the difference between a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees and two degrees “is roughly 1.5 million people who will fall through the cracks and most of them will be in vulnerable and developing countries.”

Thoriq Ibrahim, the Maldives envoy and chair of the alliance of small island states (AOSIS), said the 1.5C was a “moral threshold” for his country.

Arab Block

Emmanuel de Guzman, head of the Philippines delegation, said: “The momentum for raising the level of ambition in Paris now opens the exciting possibility for a truly historic and transformational summit. We salute France and Germany and call for more countries to join in the call for 1.5C to protect human rights globally.”

Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, told reporters today that concerns raised by island nations over passing a 1.5C global warming temperature rise threshold are “legitimate”.

“We are in active discussions with the islands and others about finding some way to represent their interests in having 1.5C referenced [in the Paris text] in some way,” Stern said. “We haven’t landed anywhere yet but we hear the concerns of those countries and we think these concerns are legitimate.”

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also come out in favour of a strong target. When asked about the 2C target today at the COP21 conference, Bloomberg said: “I don’t know if that’s the right target. The target should be zero [emissions] or reducing.”

But Saudi Arabia is now being accused of prioritising its oil-based economy over the survival of vulnerable nations. This goes efforts by a coalition of vulnerable countries to push the global community to adopt a new 1.5 degree global warming target.

The Climate Action Network tonight named Saudi Arabia "Fossil of the Day". A spokesman said: "The Saudi delegation here in Paris is doing its best to keep a meaningful mention of the 1.5 degree global warming limit out of the agreement. 

"The Saudi’s are trying to torpedo three years of hard science, commissioned by governments, that clearly shows 2 degrees warming is too much for vulnerable communities around the world. Saudi Arabia is fighting tooth and nail to ensure the Paris agreement basically says, 'thanks, but no thanks' to 1.5 degrees warming."

Substantive Discussions

Sven Harmeling, CARE International’s climate change advocacy coordinator, explained: “Saudi Arabia is blocking these very substantive discussions going forward and [from] allowing ministers to understand what’s going forward.”

"Overall we see increasing support for including the 1.5 limit in the Paris Agreement, with more than 110 countries in support, although some countries see it only in connection to below 2 degrees language. That adds pressure to those who see their fossil future threatened by a truly ambitious target," Harmeling told DeSmog UK.

"However, Saudi Arabia may also want to use this to bargain on other issues which the vulnerable countries might not, e.g. in relation to other issues of the mitigation ambition package (such as long-term emission reduction goal), or response measures which is about the impacts of emission reduction i.e. reduction of fossil fuel consumption."

Meanwhile, OPEC oil producing countries are also attempting to block language on turning economies away from fossil fuels – something generally agreed by everyone else in the negotiations.

Saudi Arabia is the 13th richest country in the world yet it refuses to make any financial contribution to the fight against climate change – this is despite claims to represent the poorest developing nations and support the end of fossil fuels.

In contrast, countries with smaller economies than Saudi Arabia – including the UK, EU, France, Canada, Australia, Sweden and Germany – have already contributed climate finance and will continue to do so.

King Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi leader, did not speak at the COP21 opening on Monday. But Ali bin Ibrahim Al-Naimi, the Saudi Minister of Oil, has said: “In Saudi Arabia, we recognise that eventually, one of these days, we are not going to need fossil fuels. I don’t know when, in 2040, 2050 or thereafter.

“The kingdom [plans] to become a ‘global power in solar and wind energy’ and could start exporting electricity instead of fossil fuels in coming years."

Saudi Arabia says it will make some investment in renewables and slowly reduce its dependence on fossil fuels. The country is the world’s 10th largest CO2 emitter – more than the UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and France – and it has failed to make any emission reduction pledge.

What's more, there is a strong caveat within Saudi's climate pledge, which points out the country still relies on a “robust contribution from oil export revenues to the national economy”. 

Saudi is also looking to water down language about aligning broader financial flows to be compatible with climate objectives – ensuring that revenues raised by oil do not go back into polluting investments – which will be essential if there is to be a managed and orderly clean economic transition.

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A coalition of vulnerable countries is pushing the global community to adopt a new 1.5 degree global warming target at the ongoing climate talks in Paris.

The group of countries, known as the Climate Vulnerability Forum, argues current efforts to limit global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius is insufficient to protect many nations from the dangers of climate change. The group came to this conclusion, which was announced on the first day of the climate talks, after two years of expert review and diplomatic consultations.

The groups said lives, rights and the prosperity of billions are at stake in the globally agreed temperature limit.

The two degree limit has been widely cited since the Stockholm Environment Institute released a major study on dangerous climate change in 1990. The limit did not become a formal target of global climate negotiations until 2010 with the signing of the Cancun Agreement.

For a more detailed backgrounder on the two degree target, read Carbon Brief’s “Two Degrees: The History of Climate Change’s Speed Limit.”

Thoriq Ibrahim, Maldives minister of environment and energy, said the danger of exceeding a 1.5 degrees target is “especially acute for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group of 44 low-lying island and coastal states from around the world.”

“AOSIS is of the view that the Paris agreement must be an ambitious, legally binding protocol capable of limiting warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius,” he said, adding “immediate action is required before the treaty goes into effect in 2020 if we are to keep the window to 1.5 degrees open.” 

Recently Cyclone Pam and Typhoon Maysak destroyed homes and killed dozens of people in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and in Micronesia, Ibrahim said.

“What’s worse, scientists expect climate change to make weather events like these far worse in the Pacific and oceanic regions worldwide, unless bold action is taken immediately.”

“Warming has now reached 1C,” the island nations said in a statement. “At the same time, our islands are experiencing the impacts of an ongoing extreme El Niño and the science is telling us that such events will occur twice as often over the 21st century if we do not act strongly and decisively. Additional magnitudes of warming will only increase the risk of such severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts.”

On Monday the island nations along with the coalition of vulnerable countries pressed the global community and France, the host of this year’s climate summit, for a binding treaty that limits warming to 1.5 degrees. The group also called for complete global decarbonization by 2050.

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius indicated France is open to adjusting the agreement to accommodate the 1.5 degree target.

“This agreement will need to be differentiated, fair, sustainable, dynamic, balanced and legally binding, and will need to ensure that … the global temperature does not rise by 2C — or even 1.5C — compared to the pre-industrial era because of greenhouse gas emissions,” Fabius said.

“Each of these terms refers to specific provisions on which we have been unable to conclude fully in the past.”

“We refuse to be the sacrifice of the international community in Paris. Anything that takes our survival off the table here is a red line,” Anwar Hossain Manju, Minister of Environment of Bangladesh, said on Monday.

Ethiopia State Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Kare Chawicha added, “climate change does not affect us equally. Those countries which have contributed least to the problem are often affected the most. We are here to cooperate. We are here to share experiences.”

Canadian Federal Green party leader Elizabeth May said she hopes Canada will join efforts to implement the 1.5 degree target.

“I think I t would be helpful for Canada to say the world can stabilize at 1.5 degrees,” May said.

Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate and Development, told reporters Tuesday the difference between a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees and two degrees “is roughly 1.5 million people who will fall through the cracks and most of them will be in vulnerable and developing countries.”

Huq said a recent assessment of the two degrees target found it will fail to protect some people, countries and ecosystems.

“The 1.5 degree target is endorsed by 106 countries,” Huq added. “That makes them a majority of UNFCCC which is just over 150 countries. If this was a democracy they would win.”

“But unfortunately these are not very powerful countries,” he said.

“The pushback we get is that [the 1.5 degree target] is unrealistic.”

Huq added that current national climate commitments are projected to increase global temperatures by three degrees.

“It will be difficult. But difficult is not impossible,” Huq said.

We believe there is sufficient technology and money. There is insufficient political will. We have 13 days to generate that political will.”

The Climate Action Network, a group representing more than 950 non-governmental organizations worldwide, welcomed the call for a strengthened target.

“If our goal is not to secure the survival of whole countries, then what is it?” the group stated.

“This is a simple moral imperative that should unite us all.”

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.