Washington: The dispute with Riyadh is a summer cloud

The regional spokesman for the US State Department for the Middle East and North Africa, Sam Warburg, described the current tension with Saudi Arabia as a “summer cloud.”

In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat on the sidelines of his participation in the COP27 climate summit, Warburg promised the “Green Middle East Initiative” an “important Saudi message, confirming Riyadh’s interest in the issue of climate change.” He said, “I do not want to compare the initiatives launched by non-oil producing countries with the Saudi initiative, but when this initiative comes from a country that produces 10 million barrels of oil per day, it is a message of a special nature and of great importance.” On what some experts described as the contradiction between the American talk about climate change, and Washington’s call on the other hand for oil-producing countries to increase their production, he said: “We live in contradiction, we suffer from climate change and feel its effects, but at the same time, as human beings, we have food needs and we want to We go to work and travel abroad, and it all depends on fossil fuels. The world is not ready now to dispense with fossil fuels.”

During the fourth day of the “Cop 27” climate summit yesterday, which was devoted to a “Finance Day,” Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said, “This gathering on (Finance Day) is evidence of the interdependence between financial policies and climate issues.”

Meanwhile, World Bank President David Malpass stressed on encouraging the use of renewable energy, considering that “finance comes from multiple sources.” He said that half of the climate finance (about $32 billion) will be devoted to adaptation actions.

.