Saudi Arabia Awarded Fossil of the Day Again

7 October 2009

Bangkok, Thailand, 6 October 2009: CAN International gave its Fossil of the Day award to the following country judged best at blocking progress over the past day of negotiations.

First Place: Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia, during an informal meeting, blocked agreement on having a new informal session between Barcelona and Copenhagen. Although every other country thinks that this is good to do, Saudi Arabia believes that we are making enough progress. Apparently Saudi Arabia doesn’t feel the same urgency and pressure the rest of us feel and would prefer to leave it to the Ministers to sort out on the last night of Copenhagen.

The Climate Action Network (CAN), a coalition of over 450 NGOs worldwide dedicated to limiting climate change to sustainable levels, regularly judges and presents three ‘Fossil of The Day’ awards to the countries who perform the worst during the past day’s negotiations at UN climate change conferences.  The Fossil-of-the-Day awards were first presented at the climate talks in 1999, in Bonn, Germany.