Saudi Arabia Claims Climate Talks Threaten Their Economic Survival

This whole oil thing is their fault in the first place. This is mostly because they stopped farming and moved to the cheavily populated cities and planted a seed for oil greed. Most of the people don't benefit from the oil anyway just corporate fat cats like in America. While they benefit the poor suffer.

They can't run out of oil soon enough. If it hasn't already been thrown, the economic shoe is shifting to the other foot, like their second largest resource - sand.

Maybe this will encourage the Saudi's to find a new niche. I mean the oil will eventually dry up. What will they do then..

Saudi Arabia was a key oil player, but now that the US controls Iraq's oil supplies, they don't hold the same power. Of course they're concerned. But seriously, it's not like China or India are going to skip the oil stage and go right to alternative fuels as they enter the "first world." Saudi Arabia just needs to shop around for new customers for its product.

So...I have to ask...

Why are the Neo-cons so up in arms against alternative energy? I would think the Neo-cons would want to see America stronger and more self sufficient.

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Welcome to the real world, Saudi Arabia! When the countries actually have to work to sustain their economies, not just sit back and wait for the oil to come out.

Won't work. You can't package and ship electricity like you can with oil. Yeah, you can sell to the immediate area, but its not like the US, China, Russia or any of the other big energy users would import in batteries or lack the ability to own solar power stations. Likewise, the neighbors in the region more than likely could spring for Solar power stations once that becomes cheap enough to contend with gas. That being said, the Saudi economy isn't even all that great from the oil riches. That said, eventually the bubble is going to burst and there isn't anything to replace it for them. The UAE will be better off than the Saudis but economic progress will surely reverse.

umm... why does saudi arabia need foreign investors to help them explore their solar power capability?
1) they have a lot of land to put solar panels.
2) they are already friggin loaded with money from western nations who have bought oil from them!

crap.

Come on... Saudi Arabia hasn't innovated whatsoever in the past 40 years. Now they want the rest of the world to foot the bill because they didn't foresee the death of fossil fuels?

Who do they think they are? General Motors?

*rimshot*

LET 'EM EAT SAND.
Too bad they spent all their money on Ferraris and golden toilet seats. Do NOT forget they are the homeland of terrorism and one of the last feudal kingdoms left on earth.
their fifteen minutes is SO OVER.

so they think that their country of 23 million should continue to hold the rest of the world hostage?

good, let the Wahhabi bastards die out.

Dont think for one second Obama will let Saudi go down. I mean he bowed like a peasant to their king. He bowed so low, I was waiting for him to kiss his feet.

Too fucking bad Saudi MFs.

If Saudi Arabia had been reinvesting the proceeds from their oil industry to build up the nation's infrastructure and other industries, then they would be far more diversified and far less vulnerable to a shift away fossil fuels.

So, I'm not going to shed any tears on their behalf, you reap what you sow.

While the Saudi's practice one of the most severe forms of Islam going, they've not treated us as badly as most. Did they not allow their country to be a staging ground for Iraq 1? That didn't make them any points with their neighbors.

I don't know if I'd call them a ally, but they don't deserve to be ignored by us. You don't treat your friends that way.

I find it weird that I'm defending Saudi; but facts are facts and truth is truth. You have to look at a whole problem, not just a part of it. They've just placed an order with Russia to purchase a number of MI-18 civilian helicopters - a gift to the Afgan govt. Maybe a drop in the bucket but it's a gift, not something they're taking.

As Saudi is mostly or all desert they do indeed have lots of sunshine. Solar power is a natural and they'd be fools not to realize it. That makes them a player down the road. We'd be fools to alienate them.

Cooperation and diplomacy. That's what we need.

They can make all the solar energy they want. Quit crying Saudi Arabia, you know you got the cash.

How the worm twists!

Change may come faster than they realize. Consider this and it's ramifications: http://current.com/items/89952480/shell_takes_advice_of_inventor_nitrogen_enrich...

Saudi Arabia has earned and invested enough to have an incredible return on investments sufficient to support their economy for decades and decades without any further investment on their part.

How lame is this, everyone consumes oil from those greedy Saudi's and now like every other industry is collapsing. It is their countries problem; they have been living as kings while the rest of the world is living paycheck to paycheck. No help for the Saudi's or any country who exports for self greed and betterment. Oil will not be needed in the future and down to all these Oil Countries, who drove oil into extinction.

They should invest in the Hydrogen business, world-wide.

What a great pity - for Saudi Royalty.

Here's a suggestion. Get off your fat asses and invest heavily in cheap high-power green tech.

Divert some of the vast spoils of oil wealth away from constructing more ostentatious palaces, feeding more armies, toppling more nearby governments, incarcerating more dissenters, and instead actually do something useful with all that loot.

Yes, it would be inconvenient. But so was finding and pumping out all that oil, thus having a near monopoly of the product - an advantage which enabled you to build palaces, and so on, and so forth..

Just a thought..

I only got one thing to say to them: Tough shit... I'm fucking sick of oil and the MIddle East. We need energy independence from these greedy oil states...

"hurting" saudi arabia economically by not useing so much of their oil would be the best thing for their people. When the west no longer is in such need of their product I guarentee that they will begin pressuring them to give their people more civil rights. The only reason no country does now is because we have to buy so much oil from them. Additionally, their royalty has so much money as it is, im sure the rich will be fine for some time. Im sure they are the ones thinking about themselves and complaining anyway.

They have lots of money, im sure they will find a way to capture solar power and sell it to europe. or run it to India or China.

Maybe this will encourage Saudi Arabia to be a more open government and society so that they can pull from a more diverse talent pool and actually start innovating things.

Could be good for the entire Middle East...

Yes, I'm sure it would, but for the greater good of humanity a few nations will have to suffer and find other ways of obtaining capital.

Not to get all geeky but this reminds me of a fictional nation known as the "The Kingdom of Azadistan", it appeared in a anime series named Gundam 00, they struggle with their economy because fossil fuels aren't used and that was their only major product. In fact, in this universe western nations hog solar technologies, it being the primary resource.

http://www.igundam.com/faction-list.html

Life imitating art?