Climate Denial Crock of the Week

New York Times:

For years, Saudi Arabia has pressed the United States to help it develop a nuclear energy program, as Saudi leaders look beyond oil to power their country.

But talks about a nuclear partnership have dragged on, largely because the Saudi government refuses to agree to conditions that are intended to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons or helping other nations do so, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions.

Frustrated Saudi officials are now exploring options to work with other countries, including China, Russia or a U.S. ally.

At the same time, they are renewing a push with the United States — their preferred partner — by offering to try to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for U.S. cooperation on building nuclear reactors and other guarantees.

New details of the Saudi efforts provide a window into the recent difficulties and distrust between Washington and Riyadh, and into the foreign policy that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pursuing: greater independence from the United States as he expands partnerships with other world powers, including China.

Some analysts say that is part of a strategy to pressure Washington to work with the Saudi government on its own terms; others say the prince sees an emerging multipolar world in which the United States plays a less dominant role. Saudi Arabia also agreed in March to a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran after China acted as broker.

New details of the Saudi efforts provide a window into the recent difficulties and distrust between Washington and Riyadh, and into the foreign policy that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pursuing: greater independence from the United States as he expands partnerships with other world powers, including China.

Some analysts say that is part of a strategy to pressure Washington to work with the Saudi government on its own terms; others say the prince sees an emerging multipolar world in which the United States plays a less dominant role. Saudi Arabia also agreed in March to a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran after China acted as broker.

The Saudi nuclear efforts raise a specter of proliferation that makes some American officials nervous: Prince Mohammed, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, has said that Saudi Arabia will develop nuclear weapons if Iran does. Any civilian nuclear program has dual-use elements that could aid a country in producing weapons-grade material.

But Prince Mohammed also believes he has the right to exploit the kingdom’s potentially vast uranium deposits for both energy and export. That would create a new revenue source for the kingdom and could give Saudi Arabia greater geopolitical heft. China is already working with Saudi Arabia on uranium prospecting.

Speaking at a conference in Riyadh in January, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the energy minister, said that plans to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel — including for export — were even “more important” than proposed reactors in Saudi Arabia. The energy ministry said in a statement that the bidding process for two reactors involves “several technology vendors” and that it expected to receive proposals soon.

The United States requires countries to meet high standards of nonproliferation before cooperating on a nuclear program, including in some cases banning uranium enrichment and fuel reprocessing in their territory. The details are enshrined in a 123 agreement, which the State Department negotiates with advice from the Energy Department. The pact must be reviewed by Congress, which can block it.

Saudi officials have refused to commit to the restrictions, which would undermine their goal of enriching and selling uranium.

ProPublica:

A long-suppressed FBI report on Saudi Arabia’s connections to the 9/11 plot has revealed that Saudi religious officials stationed in the United States had more significant connections to two of the hijackers than has been previously known.

The 2016 report was released late Saturday night under an executive order from President Joe Biden, who promised to make it public no later than the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed 2,977 people and injured more than 6,000 others. The 16-page document was a final inventory of circumstantial evidence and leads from the FBI’s investigation of Saudi ties to the plot; it was heavily redacted.

Nonetheless, lawyers for families of the 9/11 victims, who are suing the Saudi kingdom in federal court, said the document provided important support to their theory that a handful of Saudis connected to their government worked in concert to assist the first two Qaida hijackers sent to the United States in January 2000.

“This validates what we have been saying,” said James Kreindler, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. “The FBI agents working this case detailed a Saudi government support network that was working in 1999, 2000 and 2001 to provide the hijackers with everything they needed to mount the attacks — apartments, money, English lessons, flight school.”

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – 2019:

But for sun-baked Saudi Arabia, the economical and obvious switch is to solar energy, which also doesn’t result in carbon emissions and can be used to reduce domestic consumption of oil and gas. The limited efforts in installing solar power capacity on the part of the Saudi government suggest that climate action and economics may not be the driving motivations for its extensive nuclear energy plan. Indeed, members of the Saudi regime have, on other occasions, made it clear that their interests in nuclear energy derive from the idea that it would help them acquire the capability to make nuclear weapons and match Iran, whose regional status is seen to have risen as a result of its uranium enrichment program, even though it is now apparently limited by the Iran nuclear deal.

New York Times – November 21, 2022:

But Saudi Arabia has a far different vision for the rest of the world. A major reason it wants to burn less oil at home is to free up even more to sell abroad. It’s just one aspect of the kingdom’s aggressive long-term strategy to keep the world hooked on oil for decades to come and remain the biggest supplier as rivals slip away.

In recent days, Saudi representatives pushed at the United Nations global climate summit in Egypt to block a call for the world to burn less oil, according to two people present at the meeting, saying that the summit’s final statement “should not mention fossil fuels.” The effort prevailed: After objections from Saudi Arabia and a few other oil producers, the statement failed to include a call for nations to phase out fossil fuels.

The kingdom’s plan for keeping oil at the center of the global economy is playing out around the world in Saudi financial and diplomatic activities, as well as in the realms of research, technology and even education. It is a strategy at odds with the scientific consensus that the world must swiftly move away from fossil fuels, including oil and gas, to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.