Saudi Arabia feels threatened by the hot air on climate change emanating from "certain" industrialised countries, and is planning a major push to develop solar-powered electricity.

Claiming that international talks on global carbon emissions were stacked against oil producers while letting subsidised coal producers off the hook, the kingdom's top climate negotiator, Mohammed al Sabban, said the discussions posed a "scary" threat to the Saudi economy.

I can just imagine the ironic chorus of "Cry me a river" that must be rising from the presumably solar- and wind-powered offices of any western environmental lobby groups that have stumbled across this news. Nonetheless, Mr al Sabban has a valid point.

No one has submitted a "burden-sharing agreement" providing equitable treatment to oil exporters and consumers, he said, according to various news agencies.

"Oil is being singled out," Reuters reported him as saying. "We all know that oil is already heavily taxed while coal is enjoying subsidies ... (but) coal is producing more pollution than oil."

"If we are sincere about protecting the climate, we need to adjust that," he added. "Whenever we talk about carbon tax it simply results in a simple gasoline tax, and that adds burden on oil and adds on uncertainties on future demand for oil."

"If any energy product should be hit hard, it should be coal," Mr al Sabban concluded.

While complaining that the kingdom was being unfairly targetted over of its oil production, he also said Saudi Arabia was planning to export solar power and would eschew nuclear energy.

"We are ruling out nuclear energy for now," Mr al Sabban told Bloomberg. "We are joining the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and we will focus on solar energy as a renewable."

He said the Kingdom was investing heavily in solar power.

Helene Pelosse, the secretary general of IRENA, meanwhile, is on record as opposing nuclear development.

If Mr al Sabban's solar investment claim is on target, then Saudi Arabia is charting a significantly different path from its neigbour, the United Arab Emirates, which has launched a civilian nuclear power programme and last month awarded a US$20 billion (Dh73.4bn) contract to a South Korean consortium to build the nation's first four reactors by 2020.

The UAE, which hosts the IRENA secretariat, is developing solar power in a measured way, and so far has no plans to become a net electricity exporter. The Government has announced a plan to require the power sector to generate 7 per cent of the nation's electricity from renewable energy by 2020.