Global Environmental Governance and the GCC: Setting the Agenda for Climate Change and Energy Security

The threat of climate change and the need for energy security pose serious challenges for policymakers. Part of the strategy to tackle these issues rests on multilateral initiatives increasing the momentum of global environmental governance efforts. Nevertheless, these problems create a further dilemma for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. On the one hand, the impact of climate change will heavily affect these countries and thus requires their active participation in mitigation efforts. On the other hand, the remedies against climate change mainly require a decrease in the consumption of fossil fuels, especially oil, which is the backbone of the GCC economies. Given this dilemma, as well as the interdependence of the GCC economies, the chapter questions to what extent the GCC has developed a coordinated and comprehensive approach to environmental issues among its members and to what extent they are involved in global governance efforts. The findings inform the direction of the policy efforts, as well as the practices of energy security and environmental performance that are in place to meet the climate targets, which in turn will affect the overall success of global efforts officially declared in the Paris Agreement.