When discussing the looming climate catastrophe, it's easy to depict the world's reliance on fossil fuels as primarily a technological problem, to be resolved by new methods for harnessing renewable energies. But that's only part of the story, as the example of Saudi Arabia shows.
The BBC recently reported on Australia's support for Saudi efforts to weaken UN reports on the necessity of keefping global temperature rises below 1.5c. Saudi Arabia, of course, possesses something like 18 per cent of established petroleum reserves. That gives it a material interest in fighting decarbonisation, and tremendous resources with which to do so. It also makes the Saudi regime a crucial ally for the United States and other western powers.
Last month, UN human rights investigator Agnes Callamard published a report describing the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a premeditated extrajudicial killing for which 'the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is responsible'. Her report cited audio from inside the consulate where Khashoggi was murdered, in which Saudi operatives discussed the techniques for disposing of his dismembered body.
In the transcript, a man called Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb — a close associate to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) — wonders if it would be 'possible to put the trunk in a bag'. The forensics doctor Salah Mohammed Abdah Tubaigy replies in the negative before reassuring the assassination team: 'Joints will be separated ... If we take plastic bags and cut it into pieces, it will be finished. We will wrap each of them.'
Callamard called for an investigation into MBS's responsibility for the killing. But that almost certainly won't happen, even though American intelligence reportedly says he ordered the murder. Last week, MBS attended the G20 Summit in Osaka, where he was photographed sitting next to a smiling Scott Morrison at the plenary session. Donald Trump shook the prince's hand and called the prince 'a friend of mine, a man who has really done things in the previous five years in terms of opening up Saudi Arabia'. In reality, of course, MBS heads perhaps the most repressive autocracy in the world, a regime currently scheduled to behead and crucify Murtaja Quereiris for joining a protest when he was ten years old.
If you've read the dialogue between MBS's agents — that calm discussion about using a bonesaw on Khashoggi's corpse — the images from Osaka stick in the craw. But they're in no way anomalous. Indeed, in a