The EU should intensify its diplomatic efforts to promote energy efficiency in the GCC. It should focus specifically on: decarbonising transport networks; encouraging the introduction of enforceable norms in green buildings, especially on insulation and cooling; and sensitising consumers to the importance of energy efficiency. Here, the EU-GCC Coop

for the hydrogen business, such as port facilities, LNG export and import terminals and gas pipelines, and salt domes for storage. This could enable the long-term economic survival of oil and gas firms after the energy transition is complete. Indeed, some GCC countries (for example, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Oman) have accelerated their hydrogen p

Saudi Arabia centred its 2020 presidency of the G20 around CCUS and other measures to create a “circular carbon economy ” based on the reduction, reuse, recycling, and removal of CO2. Over the past 12 months, Saudi Arabia has pledged to only build power generation plants that incorporate carbon capture technology and to work through its Middle

Indeed, there is a global shortage of dedicated climate finance frameworks, including in the GCC monarchies. Some promising initial projects include the 2021 Sustainable Finance Framework in the UAE, which has pushed dozens of financial institutions to lend and invest in environmentally sound activities; a 2019 scheme from Oman’s Bank Muscat to e

from the two regions to foster clean energy partnerships, reached the end of its mandate in June 2022; its replacement – the EU-GCC Cooperation on the Green Transition and De-Carbonisation – has not yet come to fruition, leaving a most untimely vacuum. NEOM is one of the few fully financed hydrogen projects in the Middle East and North Africa,