especially if they are geared for export-we are building new refineries and expanding some existing ones in order to meet the needs of some major consuming countries, which through restrictive permitting regimes are making it almost impossible to build new refineries in their own markets. My friends, Saudi Arabia's contribution to the availability of energy and the stability of global energy markets is considerable, and serves the wider interest of global economic growth and human prosperity. But now I would like to move to the second side of the important issues, which is stewardship of the natural environment. Saudi Arabia is very active on this issue at both the national and international levels, especially in terms of reducing emissions from oil and gas. We have done a lot in this regard, including signing on to the Kyoto Protocol, part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Yet, our work concentrates on what we believe is the best way to deal with these issues over both the short- and long-terms, and that is developing scientific and technological methods to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. As I noted earlier, one of the best methods to reduce emissions is through carbon capture and storage technologies. For this reason, Saudi Arabia is a member of the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum, which involves nearly two dozen nations as well as the European Commission. This January, Saudi Arabia was proud to host a successful meeting of this organization, which focused in part on capacity building. And last year, during the Third OPEC Summit, King Abdullah announced an initiative designed to protect the global environment through research into reducing fossil fuels emissions, and contributed 300 million US dollars to this cause. This initiative has received a great deal of international support, with Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar contributing an additional 450 million US dollars for the same program. Other countries such as Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Norway and Japan among others, have shown interest in getting involved in this initiative. --More
