( Tomdispatch.com ) – Last September witnessed what used to be a truly rare weather phenomenon: a Mediterranean hurricane, or “medicane.” Once upon a time, the Mediterranean Sea simply didn’t get hot enough to produce hurricanes more than every few hundred (yes, few hundred!) years. In this case, however, Storm Daniel assaulted Libya with a biblical-style deluge for four straight days. It was enough to overwhelm the al-Bilad and Abu Mansour dams near the city of Derna, built in the 1970s to old cool-earth specifications. The resulting flood destroyed nearly 1,000 buildings, washing thousands of people out to sea, and displaced tens of thousands more.

Saliha Abu Bakr, an attorney, told a harrowing tale of how the waters kept rising in her apartment building before almost reaching the roof and quite literally washing many of its residents away. She clung to a piece of wooden furniture for three hours in the water. “I can swim,” she told a reporter afterward, “but when I tried to save my family, I couldn’t do a thing.” Human-caused climate change, provoked by the way we spew 37 billion metric tons of dangerous carbon dioxide gas into our atmosphere every year, made the Libyan disaster 50 times more likely than it once might have been. And worse yet, for the Middle East, as well as the rest of the world, that nightmare is undoubtedly only the beginning of serial disasters to come (and come and come and come) that will undoubtedly render millions of people homeless or worse.

“Libya Flood,” Digital, Dream / Abstract v. 2, 2024.

Failing Grades

In the race to keep this planet from heating up more than 2.7° Fahrenheit (1.5° Centigrade) above the preindustrial average, the whole world is already getting abominable grades. Beyond that benchmark, scientists fear, the planet’s whole climate system could fall into chaos, severely challenging civilization itself. The Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI), which monitors the implementation of the Paris climate accords, presented its alarming conclusions in a late March report. The CCPI crew was so disheartened by its findings — no country is even close to meeting the goals set in that treaty – that it left the top three slots in its ranking system completely empty.

For the most part, the countries of the Middle East made a distinctly poor showing when it came to the greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are already heating the planet so radically. Admittedly, Morocco, with longstanding and ambitious green energy goals, came in ninth, and Egypt, which depends heavily on hydroelectric power and has some solar projects, ranked a modest 22nd. However, some Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hit rock bottom in the CCPI’s chart. That matters since you undoubtedly won’t be surprised to learn that the region produces perhaps 27% of the world’s petroleum annually and includes five of the 10 largest oil producers on the planet.

Ironically enough, the Middle East is at special risk from climate change. Scientists have found that it’s experiencing twice the rate of heating as the global average and, in the near future, they warn that it will suffer, as a recent study from the Carnegie Institute for International Peace put it, from “soaring heat waves, declining precipitation, extended droughts, more intense sandstorms and floods, and rising sea levels.” And yet some of the countries facing the biggest threat from the climate crisis seem all too intent on making it far worse.

Little Sparta

The CCPI index, issued by Germanwatch, the NewClimate Institute, and the Climate Action Network (CAN), ranks countries in their efforts to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement according to four criteria: their emissions of greenhouse gases, their implementation of renewable energy, their consumption of fossil-fuel energy, and their government’s climate policies. The authors listed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 65th place, calling it “one of the lowest-performing countries.” The report then slammed the government of President Mohammed Bin Zayed, saying: “The UAE‘s per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are among the highest in the world, as is its per capita wealth, while its national climate targets are inadequate. The UAE continues to develop and finance new oil and gas fields domestically and abroad.” On the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula, the UAE has a population of only about a million citizens (and about eight million guest workers). It is nonetheless a geopolitical energy and greenhouse gas giant of the first order.

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The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, headquartered in that country’s capital and helmed by businessman Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber (who is also the country’s minister of industry and advanced technology), has some of the more ambitious plans for expanding petroleum production in the world. ADNOC is, in fact, seeking to increase its oil production from four million to five million barrels a day by 2027, while further developing its crucial al-Nouf oil field, next to which the UAE is building an artificial island to help with its expected future expansion. To be fair, the UAE is behaving little differently from the United States, which ranked only a few spots better at 57. Last October, in fact, American oil production, which continues to be heavily government-subsidized (as does that industry in Europe), actually hit an all-time high.

The UAE is a major proponent of the dubious technique of carbon capture and storage, which has not yet been found to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions significantly or to do so safely and affordably. The magazine Oil Change International points out that the country’s carbon capture efforts at the Emirates Steel Plant probably sequester no more than 17% of the CO2 produced there and that the stored carbon dioxide is then injected into older, non-producing oil fields to help retrieve the last drops of petroleum they hold.

The UAE, which the Pentagon adoringly refers to as “little Sparta” for its aggressive military interventions in places like Yemen and Sudan, brazenly flouts the international scientific consensus on climate action. As ADNOC’s al-Jaber had the cheek to claim last fall: “There is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says that the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5C.”

Such outrageous denialism scales almost Trumpian heights in the faux grandeur of its mendacity. At the time, al-Jaber was also, ironically enough, the chairman of the yearly U.N. Conference of Parties (COP) climate summit. Last November 21st, he boldly posed this challenge: “Please help me, show me the roadmap for a phase-out of fossil fuel that will allow for sustainable socioeconomic development, unless you want to take the world back into caves.” (In the world he’s helping to create, of course, even the caves would sooner or later prove too hot to handle.) This year the International Energy Agency decisively answered his epic piece of trolling by reporting that the wealthier nations, particularly the European ones, actually grew their gross national products in 2023 even as they cut CO2 emissions by a stunning 4.5%. In other words, moving away from fossil fuels can make humanity more prosperous and safer from planetary catastrophe rather than turning us into so many beggars.

“Absolutely Not!”

What could be worse than the UAE’s unabashedly pro-fossil fuel energy policy? Well, Iran, heavily wedded to oil and gas, is, at 66, ranked one place lower than that country. Ironically, however, extensive American sanctions on Iran’s petroleum exports may, at long last, be turning that country’s ruling ayatollahs toward creating substantial wind and solar power projects.

But I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that dead last — with an emphasis on “dead” — comes that favorite of Donald (“drill, drill, drill“) Trump, Saudi Arabia, which, at 67, “scores very low in all four CCPI index categories: Energy Use, Climate Policy, Renewable Energy, and GHG Emissions.” Other observers have noted that, since 1990, the kingdom’s carbon dioxide emissions have increased by a compound yearly rate of roughly 4% and, in 2019, that relatively small country was the world’s 10th largest emitter of CO2.

Worse yet, though you wouldn’t know it from the way the leaders of both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are acting, the Arabian Peninsula (already both arid and torrid) is anything but immune to the potential disasters produced by climate change. The year 2023 was, in fact, the third hottest on record in Saudi Arabia. (2021 took the all-time hottest mark so far.) The weather is already unbearable there in the summer. On July 18, 2023, the temperature in the kingdom’s Eastern Province, al-Ahsa, reached an almost inconceivable 122.9° F (50.5° C). If, in the future, such temperatures were to be accompanied by a humidity of 50%, some researchers are suggesting that they could prove fatal to humans. According to Professor Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in England and his colleagues, that kind of heat can actually raise the temperature of an individual by 1.8° F. In other words, it would be as if they were running a fever and, worse yet, “people’s metabolic rates also rose by 56%, and their heart rates went up by 64%.”

While the Arabian Peninsula is relatively dry, cities on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden can at times be humid and muggy, which means that significant increases in temperature could sooner or later render them uninhabitable. Such rising heat even threatens one of Islam’s “five pillars.” This past year the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, took place in June, when temperatures sometimes reached 118° F (48° C) in western Saudi Arabia. More than 2,000 pilgrims fell victim to heat stress, a problem guaranteed to worsen radically as the planet heats further.

Despite the threat that climate change poses to the welfare of that country’s inhabitants, the government of King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is doing less than nothing to address the growing problems. As the CCPI’s authors put it, “Saudi Arabia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are rising steadily. Its share of renewable energy in total primary energy supply (TPES) is close to zero.” Meanwhile, at the 2022 U.N. climate summit conference held in Egypt, “Saudi Arabia played a notably unconstructive role in the negotiations. Its delegation included many fossil fuel lobbyists. It also tried to water down the language used in the COP’s umbrella decision.”

At the next meeting in Dubai last fall, COP28, the final document called only for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.” Avoided was the far more relevant phrase “phase down” or “phase out” when it came to fossil fuels and even the far milder “transitioning away” was only included over the strenuous objections of Riyadh, whose energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Salman, said “absolutely not” to any such language. He added, “And I assure you not a single person — I’m talking about governments — believes in that.” His assertion was, of course, nonsense. In fact, some leaders, like those of Pacific Island nations, consider an immediate abolition of fossil fuels essential to the very survival of their countries.

Abandoning the Logic of Small Steps

Although Saudi Arabia’s leaders sometimes engage in greenwashing, including making periodic announcements about future plans to develop green energy, they have done virtually nothing in that regard, despite the Kingdom’s enormous potential for solar and wind power. Ironically, the biggest Saudi green energy achievement has been abroad, thanks to the ACWA Power firm, a public-private joint venture in the Kingdom. The Moroccan government, the only one in the Middle East to make significant strides in combatting climate change, brought in ACWA as part of a consortium to build its epochal Noor concentrated solar energy complex near the ancient city of Ouarzazate at the edge of the Sahara desert. It has set a goal of getting 52% of its electricity from renewables by 2030. Though critics pointed out that it missed its goal of 42% by 2020, government boosters responded that, by the end of 2022, 37% of Morocco’s electricity already came from renewables and, just in the past year, it jumped to 40%, with a total renewables production of 4.6 gigawatts of energy.

Moreover, Morocco has a plethora of green energy projects in the pipeline, including 20 more hydroelectric installations, 19 wind farms, and 16 solar farms. The solar plants alone are expected to generate 13.5 gigawatts within a few years, tripling the country’s current total green energy output. Two huge wind farms, one retooled with a new generation of large turbines, have already come online in the first quarter of this year. The country’s expansion of green electricity production since it launched its visionary plans in 2009 has not only helped it make major strides toward decarbonization but contributed to the electrification of its countryside, where access to power is now universal. Just in the past two and a half decades, the government has provided 2.1 million households with electricity access. Morocco has few hydrocarbons of its own and local green energy helps the state avoid an enormous drain on its budget.

In contrast to the pernicious nonsense often spewed by Saudi and Emirati officials, the Moroccan king, Mohammed VI, is in no doubt about the severe challenges his poverty-ridden country faces. He told the U.N. COP28 climate conference in early December, “Just as climate change is inexorably increasing, the COPs must, from here on, emerge from the logic of ‘small steps,’ which has characterized them for too long.”

Large steps toward a Middle East (and a world) of low-carbon energy would, of course, be a big improvement. Unfortunately, on a planet they are helping to overheat in a remarkable fashion, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have largely taken steps — huge ones, in fact — toward ever more carbon dioxide emissions. Worse yet, they’re located in a part of the world where such retrograde policies are tantamount to playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.

Copyright Juan Cole 2024

Via Tomdispatch.com

Superstorms, abrupt climate shifts and New York City frozen in ice. That’s how the blockbuster Hollywood movie “The Day After Tomorrow” depicted an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation and the catastrophic consequences.

While Hollywood’s vision was over the top, the 2004 movie raised a serious question: If global warming shuts down the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is crucial for carrying heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes, how abrupt and severe would the climate changes be?

Twenty years after the movie’s release, we know a lot more about the Atlantic Ocean’s circulation. Instruments deployed in the ocean starting in 2004 show that the Atlantic Ocean circulation has observably slowed over the past two decades, possibly to its weakest state in almost a millennium. Studies also suggest that the circulation has reached a dangerous tipping point in the past that sent it into a precipitous, unstoppable decline, and that it could hit that tipping point again as the planet warms and glaciers and ice sheets melt.

In a new study using the latest generation of Earth’s climate models, we simulated the flow of fresh water until the ocean circulation reached that tipping point.

The results showed that the circulation could fully shut down within a century of hitting the tipping point, and that it’s headed in that direction. If that happened, average temperatures would drop by several degrees in North America, parts of Asia and Europe, and people would see severe and cascading consequences around the world.

We also discovered a physics-based early warning signal that can alert the world when the Atlantic Ocean circulation is nearing its tipping point.

The ocean’s conveyor belt

Ocean currents are driven by winds, tides and water density differences.

In the Atlantic Ocean circulation, the relatively warm and salty surface water near the equator flows toward Greenland. During its journey it crosses the Caribbean Sea, loops up into the Gulf of Mexico, and then flows along the U.S. East Coast before crossing the Atlantic.

This current, also known as the Gulf Stream, brings heat to Europe. As it flows northward and cools, the water mass becomes heavier. By the time it reaches Greenland, it starts to sink and flow southward. The sinking of water near Greenland pulls water from elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean and the cycle repeats, like a conveyor belt.

Too much fresh water from melting glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet can dilute the saltiness of the water, preventing it from sinking, and weaken this ocean conveyor belt. A weaker conveyor belt transports less heat northward and also enables less heavy water to reach Greenland, which further weakens the conveyor belt’s strength. Once it reaches the tipping point, it shuts down quickly.

What happens to the climate at the tipping point?

The existence of a tipping point was first noticed in an overly simplified model of the Atlantic Ocean circulation in the early 1960s. Today’s more detailed climate models indicate a continued slowing of the conveyor belt’s strength under climate change. However, an abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation appeared to be absent in these climate models.

Ted-Ed Video: “How do ocean currents work? – Jennifer Verduin”

This is where our study comes in. We performed an experiment with a detailed climate model to find the tipping point for an abrupt shutdown by slowly increasing the input of fresh water.

We found that once it reaches the tipping point, the conveyor belt shuts down within 100 years. The heat transport toward the north is strongly reduced, leading to abrupt climate shifts.

The result: Dangerous cold in the North

Regions that are influenced by the Gulf Stream receive substantially less heat when the circulation stops. This cools the North American and European continents by a few degrees.

The European climate is much more influenced by the Gulf Stream than other regions. In our experiment, that meant parts of the continent changed at more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) per decade – far faster than today’s global warming of about 0.36 F (0.2 C) per decade. We found that parts of Norway would experience temperature drops of more than 36 F (20 C). On the other hand, regions in the Southern Hemisphere would warm by a few degrees.

These temperature changes develop over about 100 years. That might seem like a long time, but on typical climate time scales, it is abrupt.

The conveyor belt shutting down would also affect sea level and precipitation patterns, which can push other ecosystems closer to their tipping points. For example, the Amazon rainforest is vulnerable to declining precipitation. If its forest ecosystem turned to grassland, the transition would release carbon to the atmosphere and result in the loss of a valuable carbon sink, further accelerating climate change.

The Atlantic circulation has slowed significantly in the distant past. During glacial periods when ice sheets that covered large parts of the planet were melting, the influx of fresh water slowed the Atlantic circulation, triggering huge climate fluctuations.

So, when will we see this tipping point?

The big question – when will the Atlantic circulation reach a tipping point – remains unanswered. Observations don’t go back far enough to provide a clear result. While a recent study suggested that the conveyor belt is rapidly approaching its tipping point, possibly within a few years, these statistical analyses made several assumptions that give rise to uncertainty.

Instead, we were able to develop a physics-based and observable early warning signal involving the salinity transport at the southern boundary of the Atlantic Ocean. Once a threshold is reached, the tipping point is likely to follow in one to four decades.

The climate impacts from our study underline the severity of such an abrupt conveyor belt collapse. The temperature, sea level and precipitation changes will severely affect society, and the climate shifts are unstoppable on human time scales.

It might seem counterintuitive to worry about extreme cold as the planet warms, but if the main Atlantic Ocean circulation shuts down from too much meltwater pouring in, that’s the risk ahead.

This article was updated on Feb. 11, 2024, to fix a typo: The experiment found temperatures in parts of Europe changed by more than 5 F per decade.

René van Westen, Postdoctoral Researcher in Climate Physics, Utrecht University; Henk A. Dijkstra, Professor of Physics, Utrecht University, and Michael Kliphuis, Climate Model Specialist, Utrecht University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Norway’s district court in Oslo recently made a decision on fossil fuels that deserves the attention of every person concerned about climate change.

This ruling, which compels energy firms to account for the industry’s entire carbon footprint, could change the way oil and gas licenses are awarded in Norway – and inspire similar legal challenges to fossil fuel production in other countries.

The court ruled that three petroleum production licenses, held by energy companies including Equinor and Aker BP, were invalid largely due to the lack of consideration that had been given to so-called “downstream emissions”. That is, emissions from burning the petroleum that these firms would extract from the North Sea (also called scope 3 emissions).

This case is a big win for environmental campaigners who have tried to make oil and gas companies account for the emissions that come from burning their products. Similar efforts have been defeated in legal challenges elsewhere over the last few years.

As a researcher of climate and energy law, I have noted in my work how rules on oil and gas licenses are not aligned with national climate targets. I have called for changing these rules so that the downstream emissions the oil and gas from a new field will produce are considered when deciding whether it should go ahead.

Although the judgment only applies to Norway and its implication should not be overstated, it could seed similar arguments in climate litigation elsewhere. This could force governments to consider how drilling for and burning new oil and gas will really affect climate change.

Image by John R Perry from Pixabay

Oil and gas companies applying for exploration and production licenses in new fields are, in most countries, obliged to produce an environmental impact assessment (EIA) for each proposed project. Firms submit these EIAs to the government and they are usually made public. The idea is that public scrutiny and participation will ensure the government’s final decision is informed and transparent.

In many countries, EIAs must now account for a project’s impact on the climate. But this obligation is typically interpreted as encompassing the emissions from exploration and production only – not from burning the oil and gas extracted.

Despite previous legal challenges and until this recent decision, regulators and courts in oil-producing countries like Norway and the UK have been reluctant to make firms account for the emissions that come from burning the fuels they produce. This is despite the fact these scope 3 or downstream emissions constitute 67%–95% of overall emissions for oil production.

Why consider downstream emissions?

Regulators and companies argue that these emissions are not relevant as they do not form a part of the project under consideration. But regulating demand for oil and gas, through higher emission standards for vehicles for example, is not enough to tackle climate change.

Research confirms that keeping global heating below 2°C will require a third of the world’s oil and half of its gas reserves to remain underground by 2050. More recent assessments based on limiting warming to 1.5°C are even stricter.

Plainly, we cannot keep producing fossil fuels while keeping climate targets alive.

The legal requirements on EIAs in Norway allow room for interpretation, carving a role for courts to clarify if downstream emissions ought to be included. In a 2020 ruling by the Norwegian Supreme Court, in a case dubbed People v Arctic Oil, the court decided that downstream emissions were a relevant consideration for environmental assessment.

However, the case concerned opening new areas for firms to bid for licenses and the court ruled that such an assessment was not required at that stage. This new decision concerns the government awarding production licenses for specific fields.

At this stage, firms should have a much better understanding of the geology of the field they intend to drill in, how much oil or gas is there and the quantity of downstream emissions it should yield. The court argued that the government’s interpretation of the law to exclude downstream emissions at this stage is too restrictive and downstream emissions must be considered before granting permits.

Will the decision inspire further legal challenges?

Despite the clear victory for environmental groups, the practical value of the judgment must be carefully considered.

The judgment will most likely result in an appeal from the Norwegian Ministry of Energy and take months or years to make its way to the country’s Supreme Court for a final decision. While this might delay the drilling, if the government complies with the judgment and requires oil and gas firms to make the necessary downstream emissions assessment it might still proceed with approving new oil production permits – even if the assessment shows considerable downstream emissions.

Will courts in other countries follow suit? Not every country has a written constitution with environmental rights provisions like Norway (the UK doesn’t, for example). But while foreign judgments do not usually serve as precedent, courts often mention applicable decisions in consideration of the relevant facts.

In the UK, a few outstanding cases deal with downstream emissions. For example, environmental campaign groups Greenpeace and Uplift are challenging the government’s approval of the Rosebank oil and gas field west of Shetland, in part due to its lack of consideration of downstream emissions.

The UK Supreme Court is also expected to hand down judgement in the Finch case. This will decide whether it was lawful for Surrey County Council to approve an oil development without requiring an assessment of downstream emissions.

This builds on similar legal challenges in response to new fossil fuel production in Australia and the US. The outcomes of these cases could change the assessment process for all fossil fuel projects.

Daria Shapovalova, Senior Lecturer in Energy Law, University of Aberdeen, University of Aberdeen

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

( RFE/RL ) – More than 6,000 kilometers from Tehran, in treacherous waters off the shores of Singapore, a “dark fleet” of oil tankers waits to offload the precious cargo that helps keep Iran’s economy afloat — a dependency that could also sink it.

The fleet has grown steadily over the past five years, delivering Iranian crude to China as the countries work in concert to circumvent international sanctions that target Tehran’s lucrative oil exports. But while the clandestine trade has buoyed Iran’s budget, it also comes at tremendous cost and risk to Tehran.

Iran gives China a hefty discount to take its banned oil, taking 12 to 15 percent off the price of each barrel to make it worthwhile for Beijing to take on the liability of skirting sanctions, according to research by the data analysis unit of RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.

Additional costs add up as well: ship-to-ship operations to offload the oil, middlemen, hidden-money transfers, and rebranding the oil to mask its Iranian origin and make it appear to come from a third country, said Dalga Khatinoglu, an expert on Iranian energy issues.

Altogether, said Khatinoglu, who contributes to Radio Farda’s data analysis unit, Iran’s budget figures and official statements indicate that 30 percent of the country’s potential oil revenue was wasted last year.

And with the draft budget for the next fiscal year currently being debated by the Iranian parliament, there are no guarantees that Tehran’s bet on quenching China’s thirst for oil will continue to be a panacea.

With Iran almost entirely dependent on Beijing to take its oil and on other entities to facilitate the trade, Tehran has managed to inject desperately needed revenue into its economy. But Iran has also put itself at risk of seeing its main revenue stream dry up.

“There’s definitely an extent to which Tehran has become more dependent on the likes of China or those who would be willing to deal with Iran in spite of Western sanctions,” said Spencer Vuksic, a director of the consultancy firm Castellum, which closely tracks international sanctions regimes.

Vuksic said Iran is “definitely put in a weak position by having to depend on a single external partner who’s willing to deal with and engage with Tehran.”

Oily Deficit

Iran has trumpeted its foreign trade, claiming in December that oil revenue had contributed to a positive trade balance for the first eight months of the year.

But the oil and gas sector, by far the largest part of the Iranian economy, will not be enough to save the current budget of around $45 billion that was approved last year.

The Iranian fiscal year, which follows the Persian calendar and will end in March, is expected to result in a major deficit. In presenting the draft budget to parliament in December, President Ebrahim Raisi acknowledged a $10 billion deficit.

But the shortfall could be much higher — up to $13.5 billion, the largest in Iran’s history — by the end of the fiscal year, according to Radio Farda. This is because data shows that just half of the expected oil revenues were realized, in part due to lower than expected oil prices and additional costs and discounts related to Tehran’s oil trade with China.

Whereas the budget expectations were based on oil being sold at $85 per barrel, the price of crude dipped below $75 per barrel in December and has fluctuated wildly recently amid concerns that tensions in the Middle East could disrupt shipping and production.

“Iran Dark Tanker,” Digital, Dream / Illustrator 3.0.

And while Iran expected to export 1.5 million barrels of oil per day (bpd) in 2023, it exported only 1.2 million bpd in the first eight months of last year, according to Radio Farda.

Altogether, Radio Farda estimates that Iran lost some $15 million per day in potential revenue through its trade with China, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the Iranian budget.

For the upcoming budget of about $49 billion, expectations for domestic and foreign oil revenue have dipped by 3 percent, according to Khatinoglu, even as the projected budget itself has risen by about 18 percent.

Accounting for the fluctuation of global oil prices, which fell far short of the average estimated for the current year, the peg has been lowered to $71 per barrel. Tehran is also expecting lower oil-export volumes — which only briefly met forecasts of 1.5 million bpd, the highest levels seen since 2018 — with only 1.35 million bpd forecast.

Iran is reportedly expected to plug the gap left by the lower oil revenue by increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses, while Khatinoglu says Tehran will try to boost revenue by raising domestic energy prices.

Shipping Competition

Adding to the uncertainty of Iran’s finances is the potential for weaker Chinese demand for its oil and competition from Russia which, like Tehran, sends banned oil to Beijing.

And international sanctions are continuously evolving to punish countries and entities that foster Iran’s illegal oil trade, threatening to capsize the dark fleet that helps sustain Tehran’s so-called resistance economy.

On the other hand, the mercurial nature of oil price fluctuations and demand could work to Iran’s advantage. With Venezuelan oil no longer under sanctions, Russia is left as the only competitor for clandestine oil sales to China.

And Iran’s capacity to export oil is greater than ever, allowing it to more easily sell its oil to Beijing when demand is high.

This is largely due to the considerable expansion of the global “dark fleet” of oil since crippling U.S. sanctions targeting Iran’s oil exports were restored after the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal that has been agreed with six world powers.

The deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), offered sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s controversial nuclear program. After the deal went into effect in January 2016, Iran more than doubled its legal oil exports in a few months, eventually reaching a high of 1.54 million bpd in 2018.

But with the U.S. withdrawal from the deal and subsequent reintroduction of sanctions that year, Iranian oil exports plummeted. And after the exceptions granted to a handful of countries — including China — that were allowed to continue to import Iranian oil expired in 2019, Iranian oil exports slowed to a trickle.

This was partly because Iran was not equipped to export its oil and had no immediate customers willing to defy the sanctions. But that changed with the fine-tuning of Iran’s efforts to defy sanctions, the fivefold rise in the number of dark-fleet tankers, and China’s willingness to take the risk of doing business with Tehran — although Beijing has not acknowledged unregistered imports of Iranian oil.

Today the dark fleet of often aging ships — nearly half of them VLCCs (very large crude carriers) — has risen to up to 1,000 vessels, according to Vortexa, which tracks international shipping. Many smaller ships are involved in Russian oil exports, which account for about 80 percent of all opaque tanker activity. But Iran had access to nearly 200 tankers, many of them supertankers, as of early 2023, according to Vortexa.

More than 20 ships, 13 of them VLCCs, joined the Iranian fleet in 2023, Vortexa reported in June, contributing to record-high Iranian oil exports under sanctions.

Vortexa attributed the rise to increased Chinese demand, the addition of the new tankers to shuttle Iranian oil after many had switched to shipping Russian oil, and the decline of Iranian inventories drawn down to boost exports amid heightened competition with Russia for the Chinese market.

While Chinese demand for Iranian oil slowed in October, Vortexa noted in a subsequent report, Washington’s removal of oil sanctions on Venezuela that month opened the possibility of higher demand for Iranian oil.

Uncertain Waters

In an October report, the global trade intelligence firm Kpler explained that tankers illegally shipping Iranian oil commonly “go dark” upon entering the Persian Gulf by turning off their transponders, technically known as the automatic identification system (AIS). After visiting Iran’s main oil terminal on Kharg Island or other ports, they then reemerge after a few days indicating they are carrying a full load.

From there, the ships offload the oil with ship-to-ship transfers that take place in unauthorized zones, mostly in the Singapore Straits. Eventually the oil, rebranded as coming from Malaysia or Middle Eastern countries, enters China, where it is processed by more than 40 independent “teapot” refiners that have little exposure to international sanctions or the global financial system.

Sanctions Revisited

The challenge for those trying to halt the illicit trade in Iranian oil as a way to hold Tehran accountable for its secretive nuclear activities and dire human rights record, is how to make the negatives of dealing with Iran greater than the financial benefits.

That has put the illicit seaborne trade of oil — both Iranian and Russian, owing to the ongoing war in Ukraine — under greater scrutiny by the international community.

“There’s continuous refining of the sanctions programs to include and expand sanctions against those involved in evasion, and that includes sanctioning so-called dark fleets,” said Castellum’s Vuksic, noting that the number of targeted sanctions against Iranian individuals and entities rose by more than 1,000 last year.

The big question is enforcement, an issue that is being debated in the United States and other countries and is leading to increased calls for countries like Panama to de-flag illegal tankers and for countries to clamp down on dark-fleet ships anchored off their shores.

“My expectation is that governments, including the United States, will take action against these dark fleets, especially the facilitators and the [ship] owners when they’re identified,” Vuksic told RFE/RL.

Other factors, including concerns about the impact of a broader Middle East conflict potentially involving Iran, could also hurt or help Iran’s financial standing.

As Kpler noted while reporting that Chinese imports of Iranian oil had dropped significantly in October, the changing global landscape can have a big effect on the independent Shandong-base refineries that purchase Iranian oil.

“Middle East tensions/threat of stricter enforcement of U.S. sanctions may have turned Shandong refiners more risk-adverse,” the global trade intelligence firm wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

In the past week, supply fears also exposed the volatility of global crude prices, potentially to Iran’s benefit.

Oil prices rose sharply on January 2 on news that Iran had sent a frigate to the Red Sea and was rejecting calls to end support for attacks by Tehran-backed Huthi rebels that have disrupted shipping in the important trade route.

Prices surged again following the deadly January 3 bombing attack in Iran, for which the Islamic State militant group has claimed responsibility.

But the week ended with questions about the future of Iran’s cut-rate deal with the only country willing to help prop up its economy, with Reuters reporting that China’s oil trade with Iran had stalled after Tehran withheld supplies and demanded higher prices.

The United States is demanding an end to attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea, but it won’t support a ceasefire in Gaza.

By Edward Hunt | –

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – While Israel continues its military offensive in Gaza, the United States is directing a major military operation in the Red Sea, where U.S. warships are maintaining a persistent presence to protect shipping lanes.

With its recently launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, the United States is leading a multinational military coalition to occupy the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab, where oil tankers and commercial vessels have come under attack by Houthi militants in Yemen. The U.S.-led military intervention has brought the United States into direct conflict with the Houthis, who insist that they will continue their attacks until Israel ends its military offensive in Gaza.

“This is about the protection of one of the major commerce routes of the world in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab,” a senior official in the Biden administration said.

Strategic Waterways

For years, the U.S. military has played a central role in the Red Sea, a large waterway between northeastern Africa and the Arabian peninsula that facilitates regional commerce. In April 2022, the U.S. military oversaw the creation of Combined Task Force 153, a multinational naval partnership to patrol the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, and Gulf of Aden.

“As everyone can appreciate, those waters are critical to the free flow of commerce throughout the region,” Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the regional U.S. naval commander, explained at the time.

The Red Sea is a vital shipping route, accounting for nearly 15 percent of all seaborne trade. It facilitates commerce between Europe and Asia, enabling commercial ships to save time by passing through the Middle East rather than taking a longer route around Africa.

The Red Sea is also a major transit route for the world’s oil and natural gas. Significant amounts of oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the Persian Gulf are routed through the Red Sea to markets in Asia, Europe, and North America. Overall, the Red Sea accounts for 8 percent of global trade in liquefied natural gas and 12 percent of seaborne trade in oil.

“The Red Sea is a vital waterway,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said at a January 3 press briefing. “A significant amount of global trade flows through that Red Sea.”

Attacks in the Red Sea: After US-UK strikes, what next for Yemen? • FRANCE 24 English Video

Of particular concern to U.S. officials is the Bab al-Mandab, a strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. Only 18 miles wide at its narrowest point, the strait forms a chokepoint that forces commercial vessels into tight shipping lanes. As of early 2023, an estimated 8.8 million barrels of oil passed through the Bab al-Mandab every day, making it one of the world’s most significant chokepoints.

“The Bab al-Mandab Strait is a strategic route for oil and natural gas shipments,” the U.S. Energy Information Agency notes.

Operation Prosperity Guardian

Now that the Houthis are attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the United States is establishing a larger military presence in the region with Operation Prosperity Guardian. Under this new initiative, the United States is working with its coalition partners to establish what U.S. officials call a “persistent presence” in the southern Red Sea, meaning that coalition warships and other military assets will remain actively spread out across the area in a kind of military occupation.

“Together, we now have the largest surface and air presence in the southern Red Sea in years,” Cooper said at a January 4 press briefing.

As part of the operation, warships from France, Great Britain, and the United States are positioned throughout the southern Red Sea. They have been reinforced by the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which is located in the Gulf of Aden.

Already, the U.S.-led military coalition has engaged in hostilities with the Houthis, including one incident on December 31 in which U.S. forces sank three Houthi small boats, killing 10 fighters.

“It’s up to the Houthis to halt the attacks,” Cooper insisted. “They’re the instigator and initiator.”

The United States and the Houthis

This is not the first time that the United States has come into conflict with the Houthis. For years, the United States supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen against the Houthis. Both the Obama and Trump administrations provided a Saudi-led military coalition with advanced weaponry and military advice, even as it repeatedly committed war crimes by striking civilian targets.

The Saudi-led military intervention sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, leading to the deaths of more than 377,000 people. A temporary truce that began in April 2022 led to a reduction in hostilities, but the war has never ended, creating fears that it could reignite at any moment.

“Nobody should believe that the current state of affairs with relatively low levels of fighting is going to last,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted late last year.

Throughout Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the United States has been the main power behind the scenes, arming its allies while their military operations have caused tremendous harm to civilians. Officials in Washington have insisted that they have sought to minimize civilian casualties, but their priority has been to prevent the wars from disrupting commerce in nearby waterways, especially in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.

“There’s no question in my mind that this is very important, not only to the countries in the region but globally,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said last month, referring to the need to ensure freedom of navigation. “What the Houthis are doing affects commerce around the globe.”

U.S. Considerations

As several powerful companies have begun halting their operations in the Red Sea, some current and former U.S. officials have been calling for stronger military action, such as military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The United States previously took direct action against the Houthis in October 2016, when a U.S. warship fired cruise missiles against radar sites in Yemen.

Still, high-level officials have been careful about taking the war directly to the Houthis. So far, President Biden has decided against striking Houthi targets, even after being presented with military options.

A major concern in Washington is that any kind of escalation against the Houthis could reignite the war in Yemen, which has already left the Houthis with the upper hand. When former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel considered the prospect of a U.S. war in Yemen late last year, he questioned whether the people of the United States would support such a war.

“I would venture that if you ask 100 Americans, ‘who are the Houthis?’” Riedel said, “99 percent of them would say, ‘the whats, the whats?’”

Another major concern is that a U.S. war against the Houthis would create further complications for the United States and its allies. If the United States attacked the Houthis, then the Houthis might respond by bringing the war to areas beyond the Red Sea, such as Israel. Already, the Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Israel.

Officials in the Biden administration have been so concerned about the implications of going to war against the Houthis that they have not accused the Houthis of attacking the United States, even as the Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles in the direction of U.S. warships. Administration officials have claimed that they cannot conclude with certainty that the Houthis have deliberately targeted U.S. military forces.

Additional members of the current U.S.-led military coalition share similar concerns, with some even going so far as to refuse to disclose their participation in the U.S.-led military coalition. Whereas some are concerned about retaliation, others fear what people might think about their participation in a military operation that is indifferent to the suffering of the people of Gaza.

“Not all want to become public,” Kirby acknowledged.

Implications for Gaza

While officials in Washington weigh their options, they are doing little to address the core issue, which is Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration opposes a ceasefire, even as it repeatedly demands that the Houthis end their attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Essentially, the Biden administration is engaging in a form of imperial management, as its works to help Israel continue its military campaign in Gaza while limiting its effects on regional dynamics and global markets. Rather than backing a ceasefire, the Biden administration is hoping to minimize the repercussions of Israel’s offensive for the global economy and contain any movement toward a wider war.

What the Biden administration has shown, in short, is that it cares far more about protecting fossil fuels and the world’s most powerful businesses than it does about protecting the people of Gaza.

Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Officials in Washington are doubling down on their efforts to create a new energy corridor that runs through the Caucasus, a major transit route for trade and energy that connects Europe and Asia.

Focusing on Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries at odds over land and history, officials in Washington hope to link the two countries with energy pipelines, despite Azerbaijan’s recent incursion into Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the territory in September.

“A transit corridor built with the involvement and consent of Armenia can be a tremendous boon to states across the region and to global markets,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

U.S. Objectives

For decades, U.S. officials have pursued geopolitical objectives in the Caucasus. Viewing the region as a strategically important area that connects Europe and Asia, they have sought to integrate the region with Europe while pulling it away from Iran and Russia, both of which maintain close ties to the region.

“The Caucasus is tremendously important as a crossroads between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East,” Senator James Risch (R-ID) said in a statement last year. “Trade agreements, energy deals, infrastructure, and investment all have the potential to better integrate the region within the transatlantic community.”

At the heart of U.S. planning is Azerbaijan. Given the country’s extensive energy resources, especially its oil and natural gas, U.S. officials have seen Azerbaijan as the key to creating a U.S.-led Caucasus that will help Europe transition away from its dependence on Russian energy.

“We have been hard at work, along with our European colleagues, over the course of the last decade, trying to help Europe slowly wean itself off of dependence on Russian gas and oil,” Senator Christopher Murphy (D-CT) explained at a hearing in September. “Part of that strategy has been to deliver more Azerbaijani gas and oil to Europe.”

Another reason for the U.S. focus on Azerbaijan is its location. With Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the east, and Iran to the south, U.S. officials have seen the country as “the epicenter of Eurasia energy policy,” as U.S. diplomats once described it. The United States has worked to position Azerbaijan as the starting point for an east-west energy corridor that benefits the West and deters a north-south corridor that would work to the advantage of Iran and Russia.

For the United States and its European allies, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline demonstrates the possibilities. Since 2006, the BTC pipeline has carried oil from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean Sea, where it has been shipped to global energy markets. The pipeline is controlled by a consortium of energy companies headed by BP, the British oil giant.

“We need that to keep functioning,” State Department official Yuri Kim told Congress in September.

From the U.S. perspective, another major geopolitical achievement has been the Southern Gas Corridor. The corridor, which combines three separate pipelines, runs from Azerbaijan all the way to Europe. Since its initial deliveries of natural gas to Europe in 2020, the corridor has been critically important to keeping Europe supplied with energy during the war in Ukraine.

“That Southern Gas Corridor is extremely important for ensuring that there is energy diversity for Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, potentially Albania, and definitely Italy, and possibly into the Western Balkans,” Kim said. “We cannot underestimate how important that is.”

A New Route?

As pipelines carry oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the West, U.S. officials have sought to reinforce the east-west corridor by creating additional pipelines that run through Armenia. Not only would a pipeline through Armenia add another route to the corridor, but it would pull Armenia away from Russia, which maintains a military presence in the country and provides Armenia with most of its energy.

For decades, one of the major challenges to U.S. plans has been the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. As long as Armenia and Azerbaijan have remained at odds over the region, U.S. officials have seen few options for integrating Armenia into a broader east-west energy corridor.

“If not for the frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009, “the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline could have been routed through Armenia, reducing the distance and construction cost, and providing Armenia both an alternative source of gas as well as much-needed transit fees.”

In recent years, regional dynamics have rapidly shifted, however. As Azerbaijan grew flush with cash from its operations as an energy hub for the West, it began spending more money on weapons. With Israel and Turkey selling Azerbaijan increasingly sophisticated weapons, Azerbaijan built a large arsenal and acquired the upper hand over Armenia.

“Where other Western nations are reluctant to sell ground combat systems to the Azerbaijanis for fear of encouraging Azerbaijan to resort to war to regain [Nagorno-Karabakh] and the occupied territories, Israel is free to make substantial arms sales and benefits greatly from deals with its well-heeled client,” U.S. diplomats reported in 2009.

Photo by Sarin Aventisian on Unsplash

Emboldened by its growing power and influence, Azerbaijan made its move. As fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late September 2020, Azerbaijan’s military forces took advantage of their advanced weaponry from Israel and Turkey to capture the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh.

Before Azerbaijan’s military forces could seize control of Nagorno-Karabakh, however, Russia intervened, brokering a ceasefire and deploying about 2,000 peacekeepers to the region. Although various observers portrayed the outcome as a victory for Russia, the deal did not last long.

This past September, Azerbaijan moved to take the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh, armed by additional supplies of Israeli weapons. Following Azerbaijan’s incursion, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the territory for Armenia, where they remain today.

Now that Azerbaijan has taken control of Nagorno-Karabakh, U.S. officials are renewing their efforts to persuade Armenia and Azerbaijan to forge a peace deal that could be the basis for a new energy corridor.

“There is business to be done in this region,” State Department official James O’Brien told Congress in November.

At the Start Department, officials have been reviewing U.S.-funded plans for building the new energy corridor. As O’Brien noted, “the feasibility studies on this transit corridor [have] actually been done, funded by [the Agency for International Development (AID)], so we’re in the middle of seeing what kind of economic future there may be.”

Obstacles

Several obstacles stand in the way of U.S. plans. One possibility is that an increasingly emboldened Azerbaijan will invade Armenia and take the territory it wants for new pipelines. If Azerbaijan continues to acquire weapons from Turkey and Israel, it could take Armenian land by force, something that U.S. officials believe could happen.

“I think, from what I hear, the Armenians are concerned and feel threatened by that corridor and what it might imply for another grabbing of land by Azerbaijan,” Representative James Costa (D-CA) said at the hearing in November.

A related possibility is that Azerbaijan could work more closely with Russia. As Russia maintains military forces in Azerbaijan, it could facilitate a move by Azerbaijan to take Armenian land for a north-south energy corridor that benefits Russia.

Although Russia maintains a security pact with Armenia, relations have soured over Azerbaijan’s seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, making it possible that Russia will side with Azerbaijan.

Another challenge is the Azerbaijani government. For years, critics have charged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with leading a corrupt and repressive regime that has hoarded the country’s wealth while leaving the population to suffer.

In internal reports, U.S. diplomats have been highly critical of Aliyev. Not only have they compared him to mobsters, but they have suggested that the country “is run in a manner similar to the feudalism found in Europe during the Middle Ages.”

As critics have called on Washington to reconsider the U.S. relationship with Azerbaijan, some members of Congress have begun questioning U.S. strategy, particularly as it concerns the U.S. partnership with Aliyev.

The United States may have made “the wrong bet by moving more Azerbaijani resources into Europe,” Senator Murphy said in September. “This strategy of being dependent on a system and series of dictatorships… may not necessarily bear the strategic game that we think it does.”

Other members of Congress have questioned the State Department’s claims that a new energy corridor can bring peace to the region.

“I don’t see the peace process as going nearly as well as some of the description I’ve just heard,” Representative Costa said at the hearing in November. “It was ethnic cleansing that happened with the removal of these Armenians from their historic homeland in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Regardless, officials at the State Department remain confident in their plans. Pushing forward with efforts to forge a deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, they remain hopeful that they can create a new energy corridor that runs through Armenia, even if means that the ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh will never be able to return to their homes.

“As we go from the medium to the longer term, there’s going to have to be some effort made to help integrate these folks into Armenian life,” AID official Alexander Sokolowski told Congress in November. “Many of them dream of going back to Nagorno-Karabakh, but for right now, they’re oriented towards making a life in Armenia.”

Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.

Foreign Policy in Focus

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world’s seventh largest oil producer, will host the 28th UN climate change summit (COP28) in Dubai from November 30 to December 12. Presiding over the conference will be the chief executive of the UAE state-owned oil company Adnoc, Sultan al-Jaber.

Given fossil fuels account for nearly 90% of the carbon dioxide emissions driving climate change, many have argued that there is a clear conflict of interest in having oil and gas producers at the helm of climate talks. The UAE is alleged to flare more gas than it reports and plans to increase oil production from 3.7 million barrels a day to 5 million by 2027.

Some contend that the oil and gas industry could throw the brake on greenhouse gas emissions by investing its vast revenues into plugging gas flares and injecting captured carbon underground. But independent assessments maintain that the industry will need to leave at least some of its commercially recoverable reserves permanently underground to limit global warming. No oil-exporting country but Colombia has yet indicated it will do this.

Dubai appears determined to undermine even this small victory. An investigation has released documents showing the UAE hosts planned to advise a Colombian minister that Adnoc “stands ready” to help the South American country develop its oil and gas reserves.

The UK invited ridicule by expanding its North Sea oil fields less than two years after urging the world to raise its climate ambitions as summit host. The UAE seems destined for a similar fate – before its talks have even begun.

Oil consumption & dependence

The UAE’s fast-growing population of 9.9 million (only 1 million are Emirati citizens) has the sixth highest CO₂ emissions per head globally.

CBC News: “How an oil CEO ended up in charge of COP28”

Citizens are used to driving gas-guzzling cars with fuel priced well below international market rates and using air conditioning for much of the year thanks to utility subsidies. Visiting tourists and conference-goers have come to expect chilled shopping malls, swimming pools and lush golf greens that depend entirely on energy-hungry desalinated water.

Despite decades of policies aimed at diversifying the country’s economy away from oil, the UAE’s hydrocarbon sector makes up a quarter of GDP, half of the country’s exports and 80% of government revenues. Oil rent helps buy socioeconomic stability, for instance, by providing local people with public-sector sinecures.

This state of affairs is a central tenet of the Arabian Gulf social contract, in which citizens of the six gulf states mostly occupy bureaucratic public sector positions administering an oil-based economy with expatriate labour dominating the non-oil private sector.

Tech-fixes, targets and the future

How does the UAE plan to cut its own emissions?

Adnoc and other international oil companies are banking on select technologies (to sceptics, “green cover” for further climate damage) to preserve their core business model: extracting oil.

Adnoc, along with the wider oil and gas industry, has invested in carbon sequestration and making hydrogen fuel from the byproducts of oil extraction. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such measures, even if fully implemented, will only have a small impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

The UAE was the first in the Middle East to ratify the Paris climate agreement and to commit to net zero emissions by 2050. With near limitless sunshine and substantial sovereign wealth, the UAE ranks 18th globally per capita and first among Opec countries for solar power capacity. Solar now meets around 4.5% of the UAE’s electricity demand and projects in the pipeline will see output rise from 23 gigawatts (GW) today to 50GW by 2031.

The Barakah nuclear power plant (the Arab world’s first) started generating electricity in 2020. While only meeting 1% of the country’s electricity demand, when fully operational in 2030, this may rise to 25%.

The oil sector is inherently capital-intensive, not labour-intensive, and so it cannot provide sufficient jobs for Emiratis. The UAE will need to transition to a knowledge-based economy with productive employment in sectors not linked to resource extraction.

In the UAE, sovereign wealth fund Mubadala is tasked with enabling this transition. It has invested in a variety of high-tech sectors, spanning commercial satellites to research and development in renewable energy.

But even if the UAE was to achieve net zero by some measure domestically, continuing to export oil internationally means it will be burned somewhere, and so the climate crisis will continue to grow.

Self-interest

Is disappointment a foregone conclusion in Dubai?

Already one of the hottest places in the world, parts of the Middle East may be too hot to live within the next 50 years according to some predictions.

Rising temperatures risk the UAE’s tourism and conference-hosting sectors, which have grown meteorically since the 1990s (third-degree burns and heatstrokes won’t attract international visitors). A show-stopping announcement to further its global leadership ambitions is not out of the question.

At some point, one of the major oil-exporting countries must announce plans to leave some of its commercially recoverable oil permanently untapped. COP28 provides an ideal platform. A participating country may make such a commitment with the caveat that it first needs to build infrastructure powered by renewable energy and overhaul its national oil company’s business model to one that supplies renewable energy, not fossil fuel, globally.

The UAE has the private capital and sovereign wealth required to build a post-oil economy. But will it risk being the first mover?

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 20,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Emilie Rutledge, Senior Lecturer in Economics, The Open University and Aiora Zabala, Lecturer in Economics and the Environment, The Open University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Georgetown University Qatar “Closing Plenary: U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Region: the Bush Presidency and Beyond”

Here is GU-Q’s description of the video:

The Hiwaraat Conference Series at Georgetown University in Qatar
The Invasion of Iraq: Regional Reflections Conference

Day 3
Closing Plenary: U.S. Foreign Policy towards the Region: the Bush Presidency and Beyond

Edward Kolla, Chair (Georgetown University in Qatar)
Juan Cole (University of Michigan)
Flynt L. Leverett (Pennsylvania State University)
Trita Parsi (Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft)
Randa Slim (Middle East Institute)

Closing Remarks
Dean Safwan Masri (Georgetown University in Qatar)

About the conference: The 2003 invasion of Iraq marked a critical turning point in America’s relationship with Iraq and its neighboring countries, a region of strategic importance encompassing vital energy and military interests, and reshaped its diplomatic relations worldwide. This conference is convened by the Dean of Georgetown University in Qatar, Dr. Safwan Masri, in collaboration with the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS).
#hiwaraat #guq #iraq

Former Osage chief says film will force state to come to terms with its troubled past

By: Carmen Forman 

( Florida Phoenix) – OKLAHOMA CITY — Although many Oklahomans were long ignorant about how white settlers systematically murdered members of the Osage Nation for their oil wealth in the 1920s, “Killers of the Flower Moon” will mark a milestone in how the state addresses its complex and painful history.

The Friday release of the film that shines a spotlight on that dark chapter in Oklahoma will force a deeper conversation about the state coming to terms with its past, said former Osage Nation Principal Chief Jim Gray.

“This history’s been buried just like the Black Wall Street massacre,” he said. “There’s a lot of unfortunate events that have happened in Oklahoma’s past that a lot of people, especially people who live in Oklahoma, just do not know. If it wasn’t for this book and this movie, I don’t think anybody would know this story outside of Osage County.”

“Killers of the Flower Moon,” which will be screened in movie theaters across the world, tells the true story of the Reign of Terror — in which non-Native Oklahomans killed members of the Osage Nation to claim their land and mineral rights that held the key to immense riches.

The Martin Scorsese film is an adaptation of David Grann’s bestselling nonfiction book that taught many Oklahomans about the Osage murders for the first time.

Gray and Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, formerly the state’s tourism secretary, drew parallels between the release of the film and the state coming to grips with the Tulsa Race Massacre.

Many Oklahomans didn’t know the full story behind the Tulsa Race Massacre or didn’t talk openly about the incident until the city marked the 100th anniversary of the 1921 tragedy in which a white mob destroyed the affluent Black neighborhood of Greenwood in north Tulsa.

The nation turned its attention to Tulsa in 2021 when the city marked the massacre’s centennial with a series of events that included a visit from President Joe Biden.

The nation will once again turn its attention to Oklahoma upon the release of “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

The 2023 film “Killers of the Flower Moon” starring Lily Gladstone, left, and Leonardo DiCaprio depicts the true events of the Osage Reign of Terror in 1920s Oklahoma. (Photo provided)

Addressing history

Pinnell said he grew up five minutes from the site of the massacre but never learned about the incident in school. Now, Oklahoma is addressing that history head on, he said.

There is a growing cultural tourism movement for civil rights trails and other historical sites that tell the unvarnished truth about the past, he said.

“What you saw with telling the whole story of the race massacre is that it opened up opportunities for the businesses all along Main Street in Black Wall Street and the new Greenwood Rising Museum,” Pinnell said. “It’s not just a mural anymore. It has to be more than that. And with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” I would say it has to be more than just a movie and a book.”

Gray, who led the Osage Nation from 2002 to 2010, is the great grandson of Henry Roan, whose murder is addressed in Grann’s book and depicted in the movie.

The Osage Nation has about 24,000 enrolled members. Roughly half of them live in Oklahoma.

Filmed in parts of northeastern Oklahoma, “Killers of the Flower Moon” stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro. At least 24 members of the Osage Nation and their supporters were murdered during the Reign of Terror, although the death toll is presumed to be much higher.

Scorsese and others producing the film worked closely with members of the Osage Nation, including Gray, to tell the story of the serial murders in a culturally sensitive manner.

When the movie premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this summer, Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear said his people still suffer from the tragedy “to this very day.” But he said working with Scorsese and his team “restored trust” that the director would tell the story appropriately.

Oklahoma Film and Music Office Director Jeanette Stanton praised the director for working closely with members of the tribe to ensure the film’s authenticity.

“Obviously, it’s a story that needs to be told,” she said. “It’s part of our history.”

Gray said it can be difficult to talk about the Reign of Terror when Oklahoma’s 38 other Native American tribes have similarly horrific stories.

Trail of Tears

The federal government forced the Five Tribes to move from their ancestral homelands to Oklahoma before it became a state through a series of arduous marches known as the Trail of Tears.

“We have to make peace with this past of ours and, in some way, move forward with the knowledge that something’s happened that should never be repeated,” Gray said.

Local historian and attorney Bob Burke said allegations of non-Natives breaking the law to steal money from Indigenous Oklahomans in the years after statehood are not new.

Although not taught in schools, Oklahoma’s history is full of stories about the estates of Native American children being stolen and efforts to appoint guardians for Indigenous adults who became wealthy due to oil, he said.

Kate Barnard, Oklahoma’s first commissioner of charities and corrections and the first woman to win statewide elected office, investigated hundreds of cases of wrongdoing involving appointed guardians who stole from the Native children they were supposed to protect, Burke said.

“This part of Oklahoma history is sad and unsettling,” Burke said. “If the movie causes Oklahomans to pause and reflect upon what happened to our fellow citizens a century ago, that is good.”

This story is republished from the Oklahoma Voice, an affiliate, like the Phoenix, of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

 

Carmen Forman

Carmen covers state government, politics and health care from Oklahoma City. A Norman native, she previously worked in Arizona and Virginia before she began reporting on the Oklahoma Capitol.

 

Via Florida Phoenix

Published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.