No more new fossil fuels

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Sat, December 9, 2023 | 10:16

Editorial

No more new fossil fuels

Posted : 2023-06-28 16:40

Updated : 2023-06-28 16:40

By Jang Daul

Koreans were recently concerned about the news that Tottenham Hotspur forward Son Heung-min was offered a whopping 100 million pounds from Saudi Arabia akin to the case of Cristiano Ronaldo. Fortunately, Son was not interested in the deal, saying "Money doesn't matter to me."

Gulf oil money flowing into global soccer is not a new issue. Already the UAE owns Manchester City, Qatar owns PSG and Saudi Arabia owns Newcastle United. The influence of oil money is not limited to soccer, but has expanded to boxing, golf, F1, cricket and esports.

Some argue that it is sports-washing to cover up human rights, labor, gender equality and minority issues while petro-states claim that it is part of their strategy to reduce dependence on oil and diversify.

However, witnessing the global climate crisis and the persistent lobbying of these Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, at U.N. climate conferences against a rapid fossil fuel phaseout, it seems that it could be sports-washing to distract people from demanding these states to play a greater role and take on more responsibility.

The UNEP's Emissions Gap Report 2022, The Closing Window, warned that the world is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5 Celsius degrees in place and that only an unprecedented rapid systematic transformation can avoid a climate disaster.

According to the science-based website, myclimatefuture.info, if you are 20 years old now, you will experience 24 times more heatwaves, 4.4 times more droughts, 2.3 times as many river floods and 3.7 times more crop failures across your lifetime, under the current scenario of a 2.4-degree warming.

This year's U.N. climate conference, COP28, is hosted by a Gulf state, the United Arab Emirates. The key agenda should be the phasing out of all fossil fuels including no new fossil fuel development and how to make the fossil fuel industry pay for losses and damage.

Yet, because the UAE appointed the chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), Sultan Al Jaber, as the president of COP28, many criticized whether the Middle Eastern country has the will to lead such important negotiations to overcome the climate crisis.

The recent scandal that saw ADNOC managing to read COP28 emails and advise the organization's president on how to respond to media inquiry showed how oil and gas companies can find clever ways to weaken global efforts to phase out fossil fuels.

Korea, as one of the major carbon-emitting countries with greater responsibilities, also needs to look at its economic cooperation with the Gulf states differently if it wants to avoid a climate disaster and keep the promise of 2050 carbon neutrality.

Recently, Hyundai Engineering & Construction succeeded in signing a contract with Saudi state-run oil company Aramco to build a new $5 billion petrochemical complex.

Regarding the contract, the Korean government and media mainly talked about it as the largest Saudi project won by Korea and the possibility of a second "Middle East boom" for the Korean economy. There was no consideration of the serious climate reality we face and the urgent decarbonization needed of economies both in Korea and the UAE.

It was the same situation when Saudi Aramco affiliate S-Oil's $7 billion petrochemical plant construction in Ulsan called the Shaheen project was finalized during President Yoon Suk Yeol's meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last November.

Even if the Shaheen deal in November was coincidentally made during the COP27 period, there was no major concern or discussion about how the project would worsen the global climate crisis. It is estimated that the Shaheen project would emit at least 3 million tons of greenhouse gases annually.

After all, the Shaheen project became one of the major excuses for the Yoon administration to reduce the already weak carbon emission target of the industrial sector in the first National Plan for Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth in April 2023.

Even if Korea announced ceasing overseas coal financing in September 2021, it is still one of the major financing countries in oil and gas globally. According to the SFOC's report titled, Fueling The Climate Crisis, Korean public financing institutions provided $127.15 billion to overseas oil and gas projects from 2011 to 2020.

The time has come to say no to the additional exploitation and development of fossil fuel. Economic development is important. However, it should be sustainable, staying within the planetary boundaries.

The climate crisis is also an economic crisis. Funding for new fossil fuel development will bring economic, environmental, social and even legal risks to the government or a company at this time of climate crisis. There is no economy on a dead planet.

Jang Daul (daul.jang@greenpeace.org) is a government relations and advocacy specialist at Greenpeace East Asia Seoul Office.