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.
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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”.
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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
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
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None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
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The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines