Why this needs to be the year Gulf Cooperation Council states take the lead in climate crisis mitigation

The climate crisis — caused by uncontrolled carbon emissions from the world’s human activity — is an existential national security threat. With the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis it created, scientists have all but abandoned the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2030. The more realistic goal now is 3 degrees Celsius by 2050. There are significant challenges to the successful mitigation of the climate emergency — the failure of climate diplomacy itself.

Comprehensive global guidelines must be established for a just energy transition across the globe towards NetZero 2050 at the two-week UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC) in the UAE this December. These guidelines must create a financing mechanism no less in size and scope than the Marshall Plan. The plan must be born out of this Gulf COP28 and through an alliance with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) itself.

This climate alliance must lay out a detailed and measurable direction for development finance and research and development of alternative energy sources for a timely, just and balanced transition away from hydrocarbons. Development assistance must be made available to Africa and underdeveloped countries in order that they may pursue meaningful energy transition plans and also be compensated for loss and damage from the actual, real-time impact of climate change. 

One group of international climate experts and diplomatic activists (of which I am a member) is working to develop that plan.

In January 2021, Dr. Malik al-Dahlan, a well-known Saudi Arabian conflict resolution lawyer and energy law professor living in London, was approached by the UK Prime Minister’s Office and the Biden transition team with a request to help with the success of the already postponed UNFCCC COP 26 in Glasgow in November 2021.

To prepare and socialize recommendations for the outcome of the conference during the COVID crisis and lockdown, this “Scotia Group,” derived from the Latin for Scotland, was established.

The group was impactful as an independent, international civil society group because it took a classic “sherpa” role while employing “track-two” diplomacy. The greatest outcome from the Scotia Group and Glasgow, was not simply to get the U.S. and China to work together, indeed in leading by example, Scotia offered ordinary non-climate diplomats and politicians the ability to understand and engage seriously with the UNFCCC framework (and its failures) and offered a powerful alternative to the 28-year-old, two-week grand bazaar format. The greatest outcome of Glasgow itself, is perhaps the birth of the Scotia Process — now a must read for all university graduates in the UK.

Dr. Dahlan assembled a stellar membership of former heads of state, political leaders and internationally recognized climate law and governance experts. These individuals met weekly throughout 2021 to develop a roadmap for the successful pathway to NetZero 2050.

A UN-International Parliamentary Union communique of September 2021 recognized the Scotia Group’s recommendations to declare a climate emergency and to focus on an end to carbon emissions as the only practical solution to the accelerating climate crisis. The recommendations that the Scotia Group produced were endorsed by arms of the United Nations, by the G-20, by hydrocarbon producers including Saudi Arabia, and by small Island developing states.

Following the disappointing outcomes of COP 27, the Scotia Process is necessary to help with what is quickly being identified as the Energy Transition COP in the UAE. Scotia Members — in partnership with the RAND Corporation Europe — recognized that a realistic, policy-sequenced energy transition is needed for alternative power generation strategies and significant development finance assistance, to assure that vulnerable less- or least-developed countries would be able to contribute meaningfully.  

COP 27 took place in Egypt and was dominated by international hydrocarbon producers. The Scotia Group has concluded that the key to success of COP 28 this December in Dubai Expo City will be the full cooperation and political leadership of the GCC states. The Scotia Group is also building a partnership with UN Habitat, to highlight the growing needs of African states and Small Island States and making them center stage.

One way to look at this year and COP 28 is that it is the beginning of a 27-year runway to avoid a global catastrophe. Without meaningful agreement around a new GCC-G7 compact in Dubai this December, even the goals to limit Global warming to 3 degrees will be unattainable.

Ambassador John B. Craig is a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Leadership Network in Washington D.C., former Special Assistant to the President for Combatting Terrorism under Bush 43, and former United States Ambassador to Oman.