On the last day of 2025, the Saudi Arabian government submitted an updated climate plan to the United Nations which contains a new but ambiguous emissions-reduction target and argues the world should keep buying the kingdom’s fossil fuels so that it can afford to shift its economy away from oil.

The 27-page nationally determined contribution (NDC) was sent to the UN’s climate arm (UNFCCC) on December 31 2025, just in time to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement’s requirement that governments submit an NDC every five years. The bottom of the front page says in capital letters “2025 SUBMISSION TO UNFCCC”.

The document was not uploaded to the UNFCCC website, and so was not publicly available, until the night of January 5-6.

Saudi Arabia’s third climate plan sets a new target for reducing emissions by 2040 – unlike most other new NDCs which contain a goal for 2035.

As with the oil-rich government’s earlier 2030 target, it is not clear what share of the oil producing-country’s emissions the 2040 goal equates to, as the baseline is not clearly specified. The Saudi government also states that it may change the baseline, effectively making the target less ambitious if it feels unfairly targeted by global climate policies.

The document says Saudi Arabia will aim to “reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 335 million tons of [carbon dioxide equivalent] annually reached by 2040… on the basis of a dynamic baseline, with the year 2019 designated as the base year for this NDC”.

Saudi Arabia’s last NDC in 2021 had a similar format, aiming to cut emissions by 278 million tons a year (mtpa) by 2030. But neither target specifies the total the emissions reductions should be measured against, leaving analysts unclear as to what level of absolute emissions Saudi Arabia is aiming for in 2030 and 2040.

Climate Action Tracker (CAT), which analyses climate plans from major-emitting nations, has yet to publish its view on Saudi Arabia’s new NDC.

But commenting on the 2021 NDC, it said that “although not explicitly mentioned in the document, the CAT interprets the NDC target to be a reduction below a baseline scenario. It is important to note that neither the previous nor the updated NDC includes a baseline projection to which the emissions reductions target is applied.”

A 2024 study by researchers from the Riyadh-based King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) and the US’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said “the Kingdom has not officially defined the baseline emissions in their updated NDCs”. They suggested that, under Saudi Arabia’s current policies, emissions will continue to rise until at least 2060.

Saudi authorities have not clarified what baseline the previous NDC’s targets are against and have not spoken publicly about the new NDC. The website for the government’s Vision 2030 initiative says only that the Kingdom aims to “reduce carbon emissions by 278 mtpa by 2030”.

NDC depends on continued oil exports

As well as being unclear in terms of numbers, Saudi Arabia says the baseline for its 2040 target is contingent on “sustained economic growth and diversification, supported by a robust contribution from hydrocarbon export revenues to the national economy”.

Hydrocarbons are another word for fossil fuels, which the NDC says Saudi Arabia aims to become less reliant on by moving into sectors like financial and medical services, tourism, renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies.

UN carbon accounting rules mean emissions of fossil fuels are counted where they are consumed, not where they are produced, so the emissions from exported Saudi oil do not count towards the kingdom’s emissions.

Saudi Arabia’s emissions-cutting ambitions also rest, the NDC says, “on the assumption that the economic and social consequences of international climate change policies and measures will not pose a disproportionate or abnormal burden on the Kingdom’s economy”.

The country – which gets about three-fifths of its export earnings from fossil fuels – has long been the leading opponent of international measures to reduce their production and use. It has recently opposed efforts to map out a transition away from fossil fuels in climate talks, measures to restrict plastics production in negotiations on a global treaty to cut plastic pollution and taxes on polluting ships at the International Maritime Organization.

If other governments do not continue to buy its fossil fuels in sufficient quantities, the NDC says that Saudi Arabia will use fossil fuels domestically to produce plastics and power heavy industries like cement, mining and metals production. In this scenario, Saudi Arabia’s emissions will be higher, the plan says.

The NDC lists green initiatives Saudi Arabia is pursuing, including carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, direct air capture of greenhouse gases and renewables. To adapt to more extreme heatwaves and droughts, the NDC says the government is using cloud seeding technology to make rain artificially.

The country’s 2021 NDC set a target for Saudi Arabia to get half of its energy from renewables by 2030. That target is not mentioned in the new NDC. The International Energy Agency’s latest figures said that in 2023 the country still got far less than 1% of its energy from renewables.

Around 70 countries have yet to submit their latest NDCs, which were due in 2025, including India.

The post Saudi Arabia issues last-minute climate plan with unclear emissions-cutting goal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Saudi Arabia issues last-minute climate plan with unclear emissions-cutting goal