How Saudi oil scientists ended up working on the world’s most important climate reports

Gas fires light the sky at a Saudi Aramco plant in Ras Tanura. Photograph: Thomas J Abercrombie/National Geographic/ View image in fullscreen Gas fires light the sky at a Saudi Aramco plant in Ras Tanura. Photograph: Thomas J Abercrombie/National Geographic/ How Saudi oil scientists ended up working on the world’s most important climate reports Guardian investigation reveals fossil fuel links of IPCC authors, with experts declaring the body’s conflict of interest policy ‘not fit for purpose’ On her first day as an expert author on the world’s most important climate reports, Prof Julia Steinberger knew nobody else, so she sat down at a stranger’s table for breakfast. “Hi, I’m Julia. I’m from the University of Lausanne,” she said. The man across the table replied: “I’m Mustafa Babiker. I work with Saudi Aramco.” Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, is responsible for more of the carbon emissions driving the escalating climate crisis than any other company in history, and the kingdom has long been a major blocker of climate action. Wasn’t that a conflict of interest, Steinberger asked. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), on which they both now sat, produces the reports that underpin UN climate negotiations and inform national climate policy around the world. No, Steinberger recalls Babiker saying: he had declared the relationship on the IPCC’s conflict of interest form. “That didn’t seem to me a very good answer, but he was friendly and we had a very nice breakfast.” Dr Babiker has worked for Aramco for 20 years. His appointment as a coordinating lead author for the IPCC’s coming Seventh Assessment Report sparked controversy in the climate science community last year. But a Guardian investigation, carried out in partnership with a team of international journalists, has now revealed that Babiker is far from an isolated case. At least a dozen IPCC lead authors are employed , Saudi institutions and other oil and gas interests, the investigation found. One IPCC vice-chair, part of the body’s leadership group, also represents the kingdom at global climate negotiations as a government employee. View image in fullscreen Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal. Photograph: Ahmed Jadallah/ReutersThe IPCC is the world’s most authoritative organisation on climate science, with its reports approved by 195 countries. The Guardian examined the 223 lead authors in working group III, the part of the IPCC that assesses how emissions can be reduced or removed from the atmosphere.