Saudis Looking For A Handout

Saudi Arabia says if the world uses less oil it will need welfare.

There are plenty of needy countries at the U.N. climate talks in Bangkok that make the case they need financial assistance to adapt to the impacts of global warming. Then there are the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia has led a quiet campaign during these and other negotiations — demanding behind closed doors that oil-producing nations get special financial assistance if a new climate pact calls for substantial reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

That campaign comes despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold increase compared to the period from 1985 to 2007 — if countries agree to significantly slash emissions and thereby cut their use of oil. That is the limit most countries agree is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The head of the Saudi delegation Mohammad S. Al Sabban dismissed the IEA figures as "biased" and said OPEC's own calculations showed that Saudi Arabia would lose $19 billion a year starting in 2012 under a new climate pact. The region would lose much more, he said.

This assumes that the countries signing the pact actually keep it.

In fact they do not and it has some people depressed.

"The numbers are ... a bit depressing," said Knut Alfsen, research director at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, saying they showed a failure to shift away from fossil fuels. "It shows that we are not able to de-link economic growth from emissions."

No surprise there. It takes fifty to one hundred years to change the energy mix in the world. Signing a treaty is not going to do the job any faster.

And now from the climate is not weather and weather is not climate department. Also the "North America is such a small part of the world" department comes word that almost 20% of the USA (19.9% actually) is covered with snow. Watts Up With That has the data plus charts.

And then there is the little problem of how the money gets distributed in America if we get the Energy Tax Bill foisted on us by our betters in Congress.

While Congress debates the overhaul of one-sixth of the American economy with ObamaCare, another sixth of the economy looks as though it will get allocated on a political basis. The New York Times reports on an EPA analysis of emissions credits that favor mostly coastal states — mainly Democratic strongholds — at the expense of Midwestern and coal-belt states. Energy producers are up in arms, but everyone should be objecting to this rather corrupt allocation of emissions licenses:

A new U.S. EPA analysis requested by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) is spawning a lobbying frenzy among Midwestern utilities that claim the document shows they will be treated unfairly under federal climate legislation.

They say the assessment (pdf) reveals that states like California will receive a financial windfall under a global warming bill, while states like Wisconsin will not get enough help and will have to spike electricity rates as a result.

“The EPA document just confirms the formula will disadvantage Midwest states for decades to come while the coastal states will hit a ‘federal jackpot’ every year over the life of the new program,” said Zachary Hill, senior manager of federal government affairs at Alliant Energy, a Wisconsin-based utility.

And what states are on the to be strangled list? Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

There I wonder if the Democrats will be able to get the votes they need in the Senate to get this passed? Let us hope not. And I hope they drown in champagne and caviar in Copenhagen and fail there as well.