The oil-rich kingdom’s enthusiasm for renewables has nothing to do with saving the planet from climate change and everything to do with economic dominance
If the 19th-century epitome of a futile economic transaction was carrying coals to Newcastle, then the 20th century equivalent might have been importing oil to Saudi Arabia. Rarely has a country been so spectacularly well endowed with a resource so fundamental to the functioning of the global economy in a particular era. How striking, therefore, to learn that the Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, is predicting that within just 25 years we could no longer need fossil fuels. This, from a representative of a country that has done more than most to block progress in climate negotiations.
Of course, this announcement has little, if anything, to do with a newly discovered yearning to save the planet from climate change; it has everything to do with economics. Saudi Arabia finds itself in the fortunate position whereby it can effortlessly switch from dominating the energy market of the 20th century through oil to dominating the 21st century with renewables. Al-Naimi believes that solar power will benefit the economy even more than fossil fuels. The evidence for this is that global investment in renewables jumped 16% in 2014, with solar attracting over half the total funding for the first time, driven by a 80% decline in manufacturing costs for solar in the last six years.