Climate Change and Economic Diversification in Saudi Arabia: Integrity, Challenges, and Opportunities
While Saudi Arabia’s long involvement in global climate change negotiations has attracted mounting attention, little is known about the kingdom’s climate change governance at the domestic level or its progress in terms of addressing climate change in line with economic diversification.
Develop a climate action plan that sets out targets, strategies, policies, and regulations and assigns clear duties and responsibilities to coordinate and advance climate action with respect to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as climate resilience.
Use existing arrangements and institutional architecture set for delivering economic diversification ambitions, but ensure to factor climate change into sectoral planning and development.
Ensure economy-wide implementation of climate action in order to achieve potential co-benefits from aligning climate policies with economic development.
Develop a strong, independent climate change committee to extend the influence now enjoyed by the Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources in addressing climate change to other ministries; ensure consistent policy delivery across ministries and sectors and eliminate policy fragmentation.
Support climate change research, and coordinate efforts of data collection, monitoring, and verification.
Facilitate information exchanges between climate experts and economic development policymakers.
Secure climate finance based on an economic assessment of climate impacts on different sectors.
Develop climate change capacity building programs targeting not only policymakers but also end users, such as utility companies, private investors, local municipalities, and civilians.
Integrate climate change topics into school and university curricula to raise awareness about climate change among Saudi youth.
Trump’s visit to the UAE, centered on artificial intelligence, investment, and defense, will not only highlight the scale of Emirati aspirations but also reveal the complex interplay of state, business, and family networks now shaping the U.S.-UAE relationship.
OPEC+ producers are increasing output in the face of a global economic downtown. This will be a major test for non-OPEC producers, but OPEC+ seems confident that time is on its side.
Saudi Arabia has continued to make progress in diversifying its economy, although lower oil revenue, higher imports, and stronger remittance outflows pushed the current account into a small deficit in 2024.
Gulf governments are working to shift their strategies from natural disaster response to preemptive resilience strategies by identifying and mitigating risks before disasters occur.
Gulf Arab states are well positioned to join global forces to accelerate the development of clean hydrogen, but first they will have to cautiously address institutional, technical, cultural, and market barriers.
On March 29, AGSIW and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute co-hosted a panel discussion examining the Arab region's positions on climate change.
As the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was taking place in Poland, AGSIW hosted a discussion examining efforts by the Gulf Arab countries to tackle climate change, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation.
