Riyadh - Saudi Arabia will allocate a grant of 300 million
dollars 'as a seed' for research on climate change, environment and
energy resources, King Abdullah Abdel-Aziz said Saturday at the
opening session of the third-ever Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) summit.
'I hope that (oil) producing and consuming countries will engage
in a similar programme, an endeavour that guarantees the wellbeing of
the environment,' said the Saudi monarch in his opening speech.
'Protecting the planet' and the world's ecosystems was a benchmark
on the summit's agenda where the OPEC members have vowed to
'recognize the need to ensure that providing reliable energy supplies
is done in an environmentally conscious manner.'
The heads of state of the 13-member OPEC convened in Riyadh for a
summit overshadowed by the falling value of the US dollar, rising oil
prices and the effect on poorer nations despite its focus on such
issues as energy supplies, climate change and fighting global warming
- matters of less impact to concerns on oil prices and quotas,
according to observers.
This was not to say that rising prices of oil had no effect on the
meeting's mood. In his speech, Abdullah seemed compelled to defend
the soaring prices hovering around the 100 dollar-a-barrel mark, by
saying inflation had lessened the value of the dollar over the years.
'The real current price of oil - if we bear in mind the inflation
rate - has not even reached its equivalent in the 1980s,' said the
king.
In common with the other OPEC leaders, Abdullah described the oil-
exporting organisation's interests as 'fair' - the same word used and
repeated by President Hugo Chavez to brand the policy of OPEC.
This was seen as the leaders subtly responding to criticism
levelled at OPEC for its reluctance to rebalance an unstable oil
market against the benefit of low-income oil-importing states.
OPEC has showed unwillingness to exercise control over the
climbing prices by increasing output. Earlier the organization said
that increasing supply will have little impact on this upward
movement.
In his extended defence on Saturday, Abdullah reiterated what
Suleiman al-Harbash, head of the OPEC Fund for International
Development, told reporters ahead of the summit.
Al-Harbash had said that during the past years, the fund had
allocated 30 billion Saudi Riyals (eight billion dollars) to help
development in poor countries - a statement that was seen by
observers as an attempt to distance OPEC from the harmful effect of
the soaring oil prices on poor countries.
'We have founded a treasury for development whose investments
reach more than 120 countries worldwide - aside from aid,' said
Abdullah. 'Facts prove that OPEC always behaves against a backdrop of
fairness and wisdom.'
Similarly, when al-Harbash was asked by reporters hours before the
summit opening session if the organization either monopolizes oil
wealth or uses the needs of other countries 'to get rich,' he
immediately said that people have 'a distorted picture' of OPEC.
'OPEC invests in developing and poor countries across the world,'
he said. 'The oil-producing countries are happy to extract natural
wealth from the depths of the earth in order to create wealth above
the land, build civilizations and (cause) constant development.'
OPEC, made up of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United
Arab Emirates, Ecuador, Venezuela, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria
and Indonesia, produces 40 per cent of the world's oil and owns
three-quarters of the world's oil reserves.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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