The global climate negotiations seek to promote use of renewable energy to reduce emissions from fossil fuesl. Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing nations have staked claim to projected $19bn losses if oil production declines due to global climate deal

Saudi Arabia has the world's largest oil reserves and in 2009 earned about $300 billion in fossil fuel exports. Any agreement to address climate change is bound to affect this earning.

This demand was confirmed by UN officials at the pre-CoP (scheduled to be held in Cancun, Mexico in December 2010) climate talks in Bonn recently. This is similar to demands made by the world's poorest countries for money to adapt to climate change.

OPEC countries claim that they will have to adapt their economies to a world which uses less oil and say they could lose as much as $19 billion a year if countries are forced to cut fossil fuel use. Their argument is that they have only oil and sand as resources and it would be any climate agreement would be detrimental to them. Saudi Arabia first raised the idea of compensation for lost oil revenues at climate talks in Bangkok in 2009 last year, in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit.

The principle of compensation for countries economically or socially affected by climate change has been established under the UNFCCC. The Alliance of Island  States is against any idea of compensating oil producing countries as they say it goes against the spirit of the climate talks, which is to help the poor adapt to something they did not cause.

Saudi Arabia's plan to claim money is also questioned following a major study by the International Energy Agency last year which found that oil-producing countries would not lose money for many years.

Developed countries looking for increasing emissions through forest management

Civil Society Organisations have raised their voice against proposals by rich countries to increase logging rates saying that it violates their commitments under international climate change agreements to preserve forests that absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

These proposals by developed countries which create an accounting gap would allow developed countries to increase emissions from forest management for several years and only measure reductions against this elevated future level. Countries are setting this ‘reference level’ by forecasting increased logging to produce paper, timber and energy. European countries in particular are keen to avoid accounting for increased emissions so they can claim that tree-based bioenergy production is ‘carbon neutral’.

The concerns were raised by the Ecosystems Climate Alliance (ECA) and other organizations at the UN climate change talks held in June that forced the issue to prominence.

ECA is calling for rules under negotiation on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) under the Kyoto Protocol to apply to real emissions reductions so that forests make a genuine contribution to tackling dangerous climate change. ECA is urging parties to reject accounting procedures that excuse putting more pressure on forests rather than conserving them, and undermine overall ambitions of the climate change agreement.