NEOM: A Cash Cow For Marketers, A Smokescreen For Everlasting Oil Production, A Brutal Reality On The Ground

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“Sustainability is deeply woven into Neom’s ethos, values, business practices, and operations. One of our core commitments is to preserve 95 percent of Neom for nature. We are also regreening and rewilding native landscapes as part of our Neom Nature Reserve. Five native species have already been reintroduced to two native habitat zones, and more than three million trees, shrubs, and grasses have been planted across 750 hectares as part of our program to restore extensive natural habitats with 100 million native plants.” In addition to Neom, as part of this investigation DeSmog contacted the firms mentioned in the story to request interviews and comments about their work for Neom. DeSmog also submitted a comment request to the Saudi embassy in Washington, DC. Most firms either declined to comment or did not respond. The embassy also did not respond.

In order to work for the Saudi government, many companies agree to aggressive confidentiality and nondisclosure terms. Earlier this year, for instance, McKinsey, Teneo, M. Klein & Company, and BCG defied a subpoena from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which was examining the Saudi government’s efforts to influence U.S. policy through tactics such as “sportswashing,” telling senators that Saudi officials would not allow them to discuss their work. “It’s simply staggering to me that American companies are not only willing to accept this claim, allowing the Saudi government to determine what is permitted to provide this subcommittee, but also that they would use it to justify their refusal to comply with a duly-issued congressional subpoena,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, the chairman of the subcommittee, said in a prepared statement for a February hearing with executives of the four firms.

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Last year the nonprofit Centre for Climate Reporting (CCR) revealed the existence of a Saudi government effort, known as the Oil Demand Sustainability Program, which “aims to boost oil consumption across Asia and Africa, with the ultimate goal of protecting Saudi oil revenues from efforts to phase out fossil fuels,” CCR’s Lawrence Carter and Tom Costello wrote. At last year’s UN climate summit, meanwhile, Saudi negotiators “flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels,” the New York Times reported. (Saudi Arabia is reportedly one of a group of oil-dependent countries already working to make sure the upcoming UN summit in Azerbaijan does not call for a global phaseout of fossil fuels, according to the Financial Times.) While Saudi Arabia is far from the only country committed to obstructing and delaying climate action, its efforts have proven particularly successful and, as Depledge and her co-authors noted, provided cover for the United States other nations that benefit from continued fossil fuel production but would rather not be seen as spoilers.

Then there’s the environmental impact of Neom itself. Despite the rhetoric and imagery pushed by the city and its Western consultants, experts and observers are skeptical that many of Neom’s projects can match their green hype. The Line, for instance, “will require a truly colossal quantity of materials, with emissions likely much higher than those produced in building a typical city,” predicted Philip Oldfield, a professor of architecture at the University of New South Wales in an opinion piece in the New York Times. In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Neom was building multiple gas power plants “to power the region until greener energy is sourced.” “Trojena is a ski resort with fake snow. ‘Preserve the environment’ when you need to create new snow? It’s just not credible,” ALQST’s Lina Alhathloul told DeSmog. “The Line actually cuts the environment and removes all [of] the nature and all of the animals. It removes it completely.” Trojena and The Line are “the two most famous projects in Neom,” Alhathloul said, and “the two main projects are clearly not green.”

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https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/money-in-exchange-for-silence-behind-neoms-green-image-western-firms-cash-in-on-saudi-commitment-to-oil/