The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change: Abu Dhabi and Qatar in an Era of Natural Unsustainability (Power and Politics in the Gulf)

The prominence of climate change on the international agenda has created new uncertainties for Gulf monarchies whose survival depends on sales of oil and gas. At the same time, booming domestic resource consumption and surging local water and electricity demands, have placed unexpected pressures on domestic energy supplies and the region's fragile desert environment. Mari Luomi reveals that the Gulf monarchies have already the limits of their 'natural sustainability', evinced by the fact that several of them are already dependent on natural gas imports. Water resources are dwindling, food import dependence is high and still on the rise, and pollution is a real problem. Qatar's per capita emission of CO2, for instance, is ten times the global average. Can these authoritarian oil- and gas-dependent states keep their natural resources and the environment in harmonious balance? The Gulf Monarchies and Climate Change delves into how Abu Dhabi and Qatar have responded to these pressures, and how their responses are inextricably linked with their political economies and elite legitimacy strategies.