Key Issues for Long Term Climate Policy Design in Gulf Countries with Focus on Qatar

Abstract

We analyze the challenges and options of designing an efficient global climate policy for GCC countries. We review the exposure of GCC countries to climate risks and the mitigation and adaptation options at their disposal. We look at the macroeconomic cost of realizing the emissions abatement implied by the Paris agreement and we evaluate the possibility to balance the burden through an allocation of emissions permits in an international emissions trading system. Focusing on Qatar we do a bottom-up analysis to see how this country could drastically reduce the GHG emissions. We show how the polity of energy has to be modified in GCC countries to permit this global transition to a net-zero emissions regime to take place. In particular, in this context we do a first assessment of the comparative advantage of GCC countries in harnessing negative emissions technologies that are necessary to reach the Paris agreement target.