Editing IPCC:AR6/SR15/Chapter-5 (section)

== Box 5.2 Challenges and Opportunities of Low-Carbon Pathways in Gulf Cooperative Council Countries ==

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The Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) region (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates) is characterized by high dependency on hydrocarbon resources (natural oil and gas), with high risks of socio-economic impacts of policies and response measures to address climate change. The region is also vulnerable to the decrease of the global demand and price of hydrocarbons as a result of climate change response measures. The projected declining use of oil and gas under low emissions pathways creates risks of significant economic losses for the GCC region (e.g., Waisman et al., 2013; Van de Graaf and Verbruggen, 2015; Al-Maamary et al., 2016; Bauer et al., 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r205|205]]</sup> , given that natural gas and oil revenues contributed to about 70% of government budgets and &gt; 35% of the gross domestic product in 2010 (Callen et al., 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r206|206]]</sup> .

The current high energy intensity of the domestic economies (Al-Maamary et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r207|207]]</sup> , triggered mainly by low domestic energy prices (Alshehry and Belloumi, 2015) <sup>[[#fn:r208|208]]</sup> , suggests specific challenges for aligning mitigation towards 1.5°C-consistent trajectories, which would require strong energy efficiency and economic development for the region.

The region’s economies are highly reliant on fossil fuel for their domestic activities. Yet the renewables deployment potentials are large, deployment is already happening (Cugurullo, 2013; IRENA, 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r209|209]]</sup> and positive economic benefits can be envisaged (Sgouridis et al., 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r210|210]]</sup> . Nonetheless, the use of renewables is currently limited by economics and structural challenges (Lilliestam and Patt, 2015; Griffiths, 2017a) <sup>[[#fn:r211|211]]</sup> . Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is also envisaged with concrete steps towards implementation (Alsheyab, 2017; Ustadi et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r212|212]]</sup> ; yet the real potential of this technology in terms of scale and economic dimensions is still uncertain.

Beyond the above mitigation-related challenges, the region’s human societies and fragile ecosystems are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, such as water stress (Evans et al., 2004; Shaffrey et al., 2009) <sup>[[#fn:r213|213]]</sup> , desertification (Bayram and Öztürk, 2014) <sup>[[#fn:r214|214]]</sup> , sea level rise affecting vast low coastal lands, and high temperature and humidity with future levels potentially beyond adaptive capacities (Pal and Eltahir, 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r215|215]]</sup> . A low-carbon pathway that manages climate-related risks within the context of sustainable development requires an approach that jointly addresses both types of vulnerabilities (Al Ansari, 2013; Lilliestam and Patt, 2015; Babiker, 2016; Griffiths, 2017b) <sup>[[#fn:r216|216]]</sup> .

The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for GCC countries identified energy efficiency, deployment of renewables and technology transfer to enhance agriculture, food security, protection of marine resources, and management of water and costal zones (Babiker, 2016) <sup>[[#fn:r217|217]]</sup> . Strategic vision documents, such as Saudi Arabia’s ‘Vision 2030’, identify emergent opportunities for energy price reforms, energy efficiency, turning emissions into valuable products, and deployment of renewables and other clean technologies, if accompanied with appropriate policies to manage the transition and in the context of economic diversification (Luomi, 2014; Atalay et al., 2016; Griffiths, 2017b; Howarth et al., 2017) <sup>[[#fn:r218|218]]</sup> .

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