Sustainable Prosperity In The Arab Gulf

Tracing the development journey of the Arabian Gulf region with a forward-looking perspective, this book describes how a combination of good fortune, creative experimentation, and determination has enabled the region to achieve prosperity. Today, the Arabian Gulf is well positioned to assume a pivotal role in the new global order. Forced to balance an extreme climate and acute resource constraints, but also an exceptional location, the region’s progress and prosperity have historically been precarious and vulnerable to external shocks. Efforts to transcend resource dependency have typically involved proactive attempts to enable other economic activities. This book argues that, while conventional economic diversification is making headway, the Gulf region is in fact amidst a far more holistic transformation that positions it for a pivotal role in the emerging multipolar global order. It now offers globally competitive regulations and world-class infrastructure at the heart of the Old World, flanked by two fast-growing continents. It has become the hub of choice for a growing share of inter-continental flows of people, trade, and capital, and has established strong economic ties in all directions. This book shows how, despite many risks and challenges, the region possesses the forward-looking vision and necessary resilience that can finally liberate it from its long-standing "resource curse" and a development paradigm that looks likely to provide the foundation for sustained well-being in the decades ahead. The scope and rigor of the book make it suitable as a reference on the Arabian Gulf and for those interested in global affairs and economic development, as well as policymakers and the business community.

The Arab Gulf states all face increasing challenges in terms of sustainable consumption and production. These include: - Environmental sustainability issues such as waste, recycling, water usage, energy, including the use of renewables, and pollution - Economic sustainability issues including employment opportunities for local people, education and training and engagement of business and individuals that make up the supply chains - Social sustainability issues such as safety at work, working hours, equality and diversity, noise, dust and pollution, traffic congestion, stakeholder engagement and community involvement in decision-making While much of the previous research on this subject has been Western-centric, the present book includes contributions on these topics from specialists from the UAE, Bahrain, Lebanon, Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Qatar as well as from the US and the UK.

Sustainability is a topic of great interest today, particularly for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which have witnessed very rapid economic and demographic growth over the past decade. The observed growth has led to unsustainable consumption patterns of vital resources such as water, energy, and food, highlighting the need for an urgent shift towards green growth and sustainable development strategies. Sustainability in the Gulf covers the region’s contemporary development challenges through the lens of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which place sustainability at the centre of the solution to the current environmental, economic, and social imbalances facing GCC countries. The book presents multiple analyses of Gulf-specific sustainability topics, examining the current status, challenges, and opportunities, as well as identifying key lessons learned. Innovative and practical policy recommendations are provided, as well as new conceptual angles to the evolving academic debates on the post-oil era in the Gulf. Through chapters covering sector-related studies, as well as the socio-economic dimensions of the sustainability paradigm, this volume offers valuable insights into current research efforts made by the GCC states, proposing a way forward based on lessons learned. This is a valuable resource for students, academics, and researchers in the areas of Environmental Studies, Political Economy, and Economics of the GCC states.

With growing evidence of unsustainable use of the world's resources, such as hydrocarbon reserves, and related environmental pollution, as in alarming climate change predictions, sustainable development is arguably the prominent issue of the 21st century. This volume gives a wide ranging introduction focusing on the arid Gulf region, where the challenges of sustainable development are starkly evident. The Gulf relies on non-renewable oil and gas exports to supply the world's insatiable CO2 emitting energy demands, and has built unsustainable conurbations with water supplies dependent on energy hungry desalination plants and deep aquifers pumped beyond natural replenishment rates. Sustainable Development has an interdisciplinary focus, bringing together university faculty and government personnel from the Gulf, Europe, and North America -- including social and natural scientists, environmentalists and economists, architects and planners -- to discuss topics such as sustainable natural resource use and urbanization, industrial and technological development, economy and politics, history and geography.

Filling a void in academic and policy-relevant literature on the topic of the green economy in the Arabian Gulf, this edited volume provides a multidisciplinary analysis of the key themes and challenges relating to the green economy in the region, including in the energy and water sectors and the urban environment, as well as with respect to cross-cutting issues, such as labour, intellectual property and South-South cooperation. Over the course of the book, academics and practitioners from various fields demonstrate why transitioning into a ‘green economy’ – a future economy based on environmental sustainability, social equity and improved well-being – is not an option but a necessity for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. Through chapters covering key economic sectors and cross-cutting issues, the book examines the GCC states’ quest to align their economies and economic development with the imperatives of environmental sustainability and social welfare, and proposes a way forward, based on lessons learned from experiences in the region and beyond. This volume will be of great relevance to scholars and policy makers with an interest in environmental economics and policy.

This book offers a new perspective about the Gulf Arab states entering a post-oil era by looking at the political factors behind the green transformation. It discusses the recent ‘environmental enthusiasm’ in the oil- and gas-rich Gulf monarchies by asking how political power can be constituted through advocating environmental sustainability. While hydrocarbon-wealthy Gulf monarchies have been viewed as the globe’s ‘hydrocarbon powerhouse’ with an immense ecological footprint, efforts towards sustainability and environmental protection measures are increasingly monitored. Climate Change, environmental, degradation and the global pressure towards a low-carbon development are threatening the very basis of economic and political power of the oil- and gas-exporting Gulf monarchies. So far, discussions about this fundamental transformation have barely elaborated how it affects and reorganizes political power games in the region. This book attempts to overcome the dominant focus of techno economic drivers of change and uncovers how environmental sustainability impacts state-society and state-elite relationships as well as shaping regional and even global geopolitics.

The crucial importance of the Gulf region today – which may be defined as comprising the states of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, with Iran as a non-Arab onlooker – has stimulated surprisingly little interest in academic circles. Much of what has been written, moreover, focuses exclusively on those aspects of direct concern to external interests. The focus of this book is on the Gulf region as an area with its own problems of social, economic and political development. It examines the dimensions of the attempts by the governments and peoples of the area to create new social, economic and political structures – stemming mainly, of course, from their new-found oil wealth. First published in 1980.

In September 2015, Governments worldwide adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including 17 wide-ranging Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using the SDGs as a thematic reference, the report examines progress on securing human dignity and well-being in the Arab countries and what is needed to achieve sustainable development in this region in turmoil. It also looks at the complex factors shaping the region: the occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands; ongoing conflicts; governance, human rights and institutional deficits; and shortcomings in terms of financing, science and technology, trade and statistical capacity. The report stresses that urgent action is needed at the national and regional levels, and that integrated, long-term and evidence-based planning and investments that address the root causes of instability in the region are indispensable for achieving the SDGs.