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As world leaders gather in Glasgow for a crucial summit on climate change, ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s position on the big issues of global warming has become refined and distilled down into a few key messages.

The Saudi Green Initiative, and the wider Middle East version that followed it, added some key pieces to the jigsaw that has been put together over the past couple of years, since Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman became the energy minister and made green issues a priority of the Kingdom’s energy policy.

Piecing all this together, it is possible to come up with a pretty accurate picture of where ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ stands as it heads into the COP26 talks.

The SGI added two crucial elements: A commitment to double the amount of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere by 2030 through new Nationally Determined Contributions, and the setting of a target date of 2060 to achieve net zero in the Kingdom’s economy. ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ also joined the Global Methane Pledge to drastically cut the amount of that pollutant gas in the atmosphere.

For the leading oil exporter in the world, and a major petrochemical force, these are extraordinary commitments, and go a long way to putting the Kingdom among the world leaders in combating climate change.

These targets will be achieved within the circular carbon economy, the framework pioneered by ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ and endorsed last year by world leaders at the G20 summit. The beauty of the CCE is that it allows individual countries to tackle global warming in their own way, at their own speed, and while taking into account their own national economic circumstances.

This is far better than being straitjacketed into some ideologically driven formula — for instance, a move to halt all investment in fossil fuels — because it takes into account changing global circumstances.

¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s drive toward energy transition is best understood in the context of the Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the economy away from oil dependency.

Frank Kane

So, while ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ is aiming for net zero by 2060, it is also mindful that its economy depends on hydrocarbon exports and will continue to do so for many decades. So the Kingdom reserves the right to adjust its net-zero goal and its NDC commitments depending on the global demand for oil, gas and other hydrocarbon-derived products. That is eminently sensible.

¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ’s drive toward energy transition is best understood in the context of the Vision 2030 strategy to diversify the economy away from oil dependency. As the non-oil sector grows, it will be able to be a more dynamic engine for growth. But until the day that it becomes the dominant economic sector, the oil economy has to be kept healthy and productive.

Remember too that the Kingdom is not seeking financial assistance from the outside world to achieve net zero, as some emerging economies are. The Saudi energy transition has to be self-financing, and that requires an efficient oil industry.

The other key enabler in the Saudi green drive is technology. The Kingdom has been pioneering research and development, as well as investment, in energy efficiency, new engine technology and other environmentally friendly measures for some years, but it recognizes that now is the time to step up the game.

In particular, technologies for carbon capture, utilization and storage require big investment, while the holy grail of the energy transition — direct air capture of carbon dioxide — is still in its relative infancy. If DAC technology can be perfected and scaled up, it would be the biggest single step toward achieving the target of the Paris Agreement to keep global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The Kingdom’s 2060 target can also be accelerated by advances in technology. If techniques of CCUS and DAC are sufficiently improved ahead of that date, there is no reason why ¶¶Òõ¶ÌÊÓƵ cannot be carbon neutral before its target date.

All in all, it is a pretty comprehensive set of measures that the Kingdom is proposing at COP26. Will it be enough to satisfy the skeptics who will be vocally present in Glasgow? We will find that out over the course of the next couple of weeks.

• Frank Kane is an award-winning business journalist based in Dubai. Twitter: @frankkanedubai