Saudi Arabia is decarbonising, says oil minister

Ali Al-Naimi points to kingdom’s capturing of carbon dioxide as evidence of its commitment to tackling climate change at Paris summit

By Alex Pashley

Saudi Arabia’s oil minister batted away criticism the Gulf kingdom was doing little to counter climate change on Monday.

“There are plenty of things being done,” Ali Al Naimi told Climate Home on the sidelines of the Paris summit.

“We are injecting CO2 in the ground. We are converting CO2 into polymers, so we are doing many things in that area.”

The world’s top crude exporter last month chaired a forum to scale up technology that buries carbon dioxide from industry in the ground and promised to cut carbon emissions in its climate plan if oil revenues remained strong.

But the Middle Eastern country has a reputation for undermining climate negotiations as it resists moves to phase out fossil fuels, upon which its economy depends.

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