{"id":927,"date":"2014-10-31T19:31:58","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T23:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=927"},"modified":"2014-10-31T19:31:58","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T23:31:58","slug":"the-five-worst-climate-villains-among-world-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=927","title":{"rendered":"The Five Worst Climate Villains Among World Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Five Worst Climate Villains Among World Leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Canadian Premier Stephen have just landed near the bottom of a ranking of the world\u2019s worst climate villains. The 2014 Climate Change Performance Index, published by Germanwatch and the Climate Action Network, called out Abbott and Harper for aggressively dismantling and blocking clean energy policies in their countries. They came in at 57th and 58th in a list of 61 names, and have some illustrious company at the bottom. Let\u2019s take a look at the worst five.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Dead last on the Climate Action Network\u2019s list and holder of the worst record among the G20. A desert country that was long the world\u2019s foremost oil producer, Saudi Arabia seems both naturally and intentionally destined to be a man-made climate change skeptic. Although the U.S. is\u00a0poised to overtake<\/a>\u00a0it in terms of oil production, Saudi Arabia reached a production of 10.24 million barrels per day\u00a0in August 2013<\/a>, its highest level in a number of years.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Furthermore, although the country supports much of the global thirst for oil, the ruling Saud family, especially King Abdullah, has crafted an energy policy that leaves the country relying extensively on hydrocarbons for its own consumption. Last August, it was reported that a shortage of natural gas had left Saudi Arabia\u00a0dependent on oil<\/a>\u00a0for its electricity production. This was after King Abdullah\u2019s envoys tried to get climate change dropped from the United Nations\u2019 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, with Andrew Scott from the Overseas Development Institute saying that \u201cthe international recognition that sustainable development cannot be achieved without renewable energy is not in the interest of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela or any other oil exporting countries.\u201d It is this failure to move his country on from its oil-rich present that makes King Abdullah the worst climate villain among world leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Five Worst Climate Villains Among World Leaders. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Canadian Premier Stephen have just landed near the bottom of a ranking of the world\u2019s worst climate villains. The 2014 Climate Change Performance Index, published by Germanwatch and the Climate Action Network, called out Abbott and Harper for aggressively dismantling and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,328,588],"class_list":["post-927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}