Climate change impacts Data from world-renowned researchers published in The Guardian has revealed how a group of companies, among them Saudi Aramco, are the heaviest contributors to climate change. Details have shown how they have continued to expand their operations despite being aware of the industry’s devastating impact on the planet. Saudi Aramco is way out in front as the top corporate polluter, having contributed 59.26 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent since 1965, or 4.38 percent of the world's total emissions since that date.

Opposing climate policies In an October 2019 report, investigative journalistic platform The Intercept noted that "the Saudi Arabian Government have a stunning history of undermining action to address the climate crisis and have a concerted effort designed to preserve the profits of Aramco. Saudi Arabia has played a quiet yet powerful role in thwarting proactive climate policy at United Nations conferences and U.S. domestic policy battles alike. Since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change meeting in Madrid in 1995 — when Mohammad Al-Sabban, then a Saudi petroleum official, famously confronted scientists, claiming the science around climate change was not settled — Saudi delegates have maneuvered to push for a series of delays."

Human rights violations in Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco is fully owned by the Saudi Arabian Government. The country has a dubious, highly questionable record when it comes to human rights. The Saudi Government, which enforces Wahhabi religious laws under the absolute rule of the Saudi royal family, has been accused by various international organisations and governments of violating multiple human rights within the country. The strict regime ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia consistently rankis among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.

A 2018 Human Rights Watch report noted that "Saudi authorities stepped up their arbitrary arrests, trials, and convictions of peaceful dissidents and activists in 2018, including a large-scale coordinated crackdown against the women’s rights movement beginning in May. In June, Saudi Arabia ended the long-standing ban on women driving, but authorities continued to discriminate against women and religious minorities. Through 2018, the Saudi-led coalition continued a military campaign against the Houthi rebel group in Yemen that has included scores of unlawful airstrikes that have killed and wounded thousands of civilians."

Capital punishment Saudi Arabia still enforces the death penalty. In 2018 at least 149 people were executed (Amnesty International). On April 23, 2019, Saudi Arabia carried out a mass execution of 37 imprisoned civilians who had been convicted mostly on the basis of confessions obtained under torture or written by the accused's torturers. Most of the executed belonged to the country's Shia minority.