18 October 2022

A new climate for peace: How Europe can promote environmental cooperation between the Gulf Arab states and Iran

The Middle East is one of the regions of the world most exposed to climate change and desertification. The urgent challenges it faces include air pollution and sandstorms, temperatures in some areas that exceed a threshold for human adaptability, and extreme weather events, such as Cyclone Shaheen in October 2021 and the floods in summer 2022. Water scarcity, long a grave concern, is worsening. Yet Middle Eastern countries are moving too slowly to address these common threats to their environmental and climate security – and have rarely cooperated with one another in these areas. As such concerns gradually become more relevant to Middle Eastern policymakers, Europeans should encourage them to work together and should create and support a platform on which they could do so. This would advance Europeans’ climate agenda and signal their commitment to tackling climate change as a global problem. It could also reinforce the trend towards de-escalation between Gulf Arab states and Iran.

Until recently, Russia supplied 40 per cent of the European Union’s natural gas imports and 27 per cent of its oil imports. But their response to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine left Europeans scrambling for alternative providers, including Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. The urgency of the situation prompted Europeans to refocus on hydrocarbons, denting their climate credentials. While they have also accelerated their domestic renewable energy initiatives, this has not been enough to demonstrate that environmental concerns are still at the top of their agenda. Therefore, they need to make substantive diplomatic efforts and investments in the energy transition. These would be particularly significant if they were directed towards GCC states, which are some of the world’s leading producers of hydrocarbons.

Such an undertaking would also aid the EU’s work to implement the European Green Deal abroad. Moreover, Europeans could use this to strengthen their geopolitical position in the Middle East. Europeans remain weak players in the region in terms of their political and security clout. However, they have a competitive advantage – including over China – in efforts to address non-military security challenges, which are linked to domestic and regional stability.

The opportunity to support de-escalation between Iran and Gulf Arab states comes from a trend that began in late 2019, when shifts in international political and economic dynamics pushed these rivals to explore diplomatic solutions to their disputes. This strategic pause led to a series of bilateral and multilateral dialogue processes. The United Arab Emirates gradually engaged with Iran, including through the provision of covid-19 aid, maritime security consultations, and economic exchanges. Saudi Arabia held several rounds of Iraqi-facilitated bilateral talks with Iran, readmitted Iranian diplomats to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Jeddah, and explored the restoration of diplomatic relations with Iran. Qatar, Kuwait, and Oman pursued their dialogue with Iran more openly, focusing on energy diplomacy and even regional security, as well as the revival of the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Both the UAE and Kuwait sent their ambassadors back to Iran in August 2022. A year earlier, Iraq and France co-hosted the Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership, which involved representatives from Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

These are all positive steps. However, the de-escalation process remains extremely fragile.

For Gulf monarchies, sustainable and long-term de-escalation with Iran would require Tehran to heed their geopolitical red lines, such as by scaling back Iranian military cooperation with hostile groups such as the Houthis in Yemen. For Iran, Gulf countries’ reliance on US security guarantees – which have led to extensive US military deployments on their territory – is a fundamental obstacle to confidence-building. There has been almost no progress in these areas, but that makes it even more crucial for the sides to institutionalise their limited engagement with one another, especially in light of the complicated recent developments around the JCPOA.

If the JCPOA comes into effect once again, Iran and its neighbours will need to follow this up with diplomatic engagement to sustain the deal. Conversely, the collapse of talks on the deal could close some channels of regional diplomacy. The United States has already started pressing Gulf monarchies to reduce some of their economic engagement with Tehran, by imposing sanctions on Emirati firms for trading Iranian oil. In view of the difficulties in its nuclear negotiations with Iran, the Biden administration has – according to Saudi and Emirati officials – linked Iran’s regional reintegration to the JCPOA, in a bid to pressure Tehran to return to the deal. Yet, in doing so, the US is depriving Gulf states of the incentives they can offer to Iran in return for de-escalation. In this context – and given Middle Eastern governments’ reluctance to address one another’s major geopolitical and security concerns – there is an urgent need for a new platform on which to maintain dialogue. A platform that centres on climate and environmental security may be the only politically feasible option. And external support might help insulate the process from political shifts in the region.

Traditionally, environmental security has not driven policy in the Middle East, where regimes’ highest priority is political security. But the link between the two areas is becoming clearer. This is especially so in Iraq and Iran – where there are growing public protests about water scarcity and the impact of pollution on public health, and where climate-induced migration is becoming a challenge.

Gulf monarchies, which are better equipped to cope with environmental degradation, still recognise the political value of international climate politics, and have overseen initiatives and investments in this area. For instance, Saudi Arabia launched the Middle East Green Initiative, and the UAE will host the 2023 United Nations’ Conference of the Parties (COP28). Gulf monarchies also want to maintain channels of communication with their neighbours in a tense and unstable geopolitical environment, and to strengthen regional initiatives in response to their decreasing trust in actors further afield.

Other Middle Eastern countries have also come to view this issue as suited to regional cooperation, with Iran hosting ministerial representatives from 11 states at a July 2022 conference on “Environmental Cooperation for a Better Future”. Iraq has sought to engage with all its neighbours on environmental issues. Iran and Iraq see the benefits of cooperating with wealthier and more technologically advanced Gulf monarchies – especially given the limitations they face in attracting foreign investment while under US sanctions, and in dealing with post-conflict reconstruction and paralysis in government, respectively.

This paper explores the climate and environmental challenges facing Iran, Iraq, and GCC states, analysing the domestic and multilateral initiatives the countries have launched to tackle them. It recommends policies that could help these countries sustainably and effectively upgrade their environmental security cooperation with one another. Finally, it explains why Europe would be an appropriate convening power for this process and how Europeans could contribute to it diplomatically and operationally, including through technical support.

This policy brief was authored by Cinzia Bianco. It was originally published on the 11th of October by the European Council on Foreign Relations. The full policy brief can be viewed here.
Photo Credit: Ninara/ Flickr