Welcome to the Earth.Org Global Sustainability Index for Saudi Arabia, where Earth.Org examines the policies and actions regarding the environment of every nation on earth. Combining the most respected global indexes on pollution, climate change, policy, energy, oceans, biodiversity we have produced an overall Global Index, which will be updated annually. This is the Global Sustainability Index scorecard for Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is projected to meet its 2030 NDC target- partly because it is so weak, but also because there is a lack of available data; the Kingdom has not published the baseline corresponding to its Paris Agreement target.
However, Climate Action Tracker has predicted that Saudi Arabia’s emissions will reach an 92- 108% increase above 2010 levels in 2030.
The Kingdom’s environmental mark on the world is grim- the state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco has been named as the company most responsible for carbon dioxide emissions since the 1960s.A potential light in the tunnel is Saudi Arabia’s pledge to develop 58.7GW of clean energy by 2030 as part of its “Vision 2030” plan, a revision of the 2013 renewables programme that aimed to develop 54GW of clean energy by 2030. Also part of the plan is its phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies, however in December 2017, the government announced that it would slow this phase-out down to enhance the economy.
- Saudi Arabia’s pledges are deemed to be incompatible with the Paris Agreement targets due to the lack of data and the absence of national emissions projections.
- Saudi Arabia’s emissions are estimated to increase by 92-108% above 2010 levels by 2030.
- In 2019, it announced a renewable energy target 600% higher than the one given in 2016. However, they have only implemented 1% of the 2016 goal so far.
You might also like: Global Emissions (2016)
References:
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Biodiversity, Policy: Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G. (2019): Sustainable Development Report 2019. New York: Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN).
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Oceans: Halpern, Benjamin S., et al. “An index to assess the health and benefits of the global ocean.” Nature 488.7413 (2012): 615-620.
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Pollution: Wendling, Z. A., Emerson, J. W., Esty, D. C., Levy, M. A., de Sherbinin, A., et al. (2018). 2018 Environmental Performance Index. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy. https://epi.yale.edu/
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Climate Change: Climate Change Performance Index; Jan Burck, Ursula Hagen, Niklas Höhne, Leonardo Nascimento, Christoph Bals, ISBN 978-3-943704-75-4, 2019
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Energy: Enerdata –World Energy Statistics – Yearbook.
World Energy Statistics
