Europeans should view the summits taking place in Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the coming months – the second Middle East Green Initiative Summit, the UN’s Climate Week, and COP28 – as catalysts to upgrade their energy relations with the GCC monarchies into a more strategic engagement on green transition and decarbonisation. The focus of thi

Africa in the short term. The Gulf states offer strong financing capacities, pre-existing (export) infrastructure, short construction times, and advanced know-how in the hydrogen sector, thereby allowing them to implement pilot projects quickly. Their location, in the centre of the heavily travelled EU-China transport corridor, is ideal for the pro

Another example of commercially viable use of CCUS is CO2-based synthetic fuels, such as “electrofuels” or “e-fuels”. These use captured CO2 and electricity to produce “drop-in” diesel or gasoline, methanol, and similar fuels that can power vehicles, aeroplanes, and ships. EU policies have incentivised CO2-based synthetic fuels, in part

they fare better on electrification. Over the past ten years, GCC policymakers have startedpushing more vigorously to improve both, including in cooperation with the EU, which they recognise as having significant expertise to share on both topics.Energy efficiency and electrification, alongside the development of renewable energy sources and emissi

in the GCC region of 80GW by 2030 would allow the monarchies to conserve about 11 trillion litres of water, as well as 400m barrels of oil, per year. This would also create more than 200,000 jobs. The green transition will be a given in the region, but the GCC states want that transition to be slow and gradual.[3] They would first scale up their re