Good morning everybody and welcome to the annual Institute of Middle Eastern Studies conference on tracing instability challenges and change from around to the Gulf. We're just going to wait a minute or two to allow people to join us and then we will make a start with the day. Just to repeat welcome everybody to the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies annual conference. We will start in a minute. We're just going to let people join us online. You can see the attendees list going longer at each moment which is wonderful. We will make a start very soon. Fantastic. Well welcome everybody. My name is Jonathan Hill. I am the director of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London and it is my very great pleasure to welcome you to annual conference on tracing instability challenges and change from around to the Gulf. The Institute is now a little over three years old and was set up to bring together scholars and students from across King's interested in and working on the Middle East and North Africa region. We have just over 30 academic members based in 10 departments across half a dozen schools and two faculties. In addition to serving our own community of scholars and students the Institute also seeks to showcase the work taking place at King's to the wider research and practitioner communities to help our members engage with colleagues elsewhere in the UK the Middle East and the wider world and also hopefully inform the deliberations and policies that are being that are taking place and being developed by key governmental and non-governmental actors. That's why today's events today's conference is so important especially at the moment given everything that's happening in the world and the challenges facing those who are eager to study and to learn more about this important and endlessly fascinating region. Last year because of the Covid crisis we were forced to hold a virtual conference and while we are not yet fully free from this accursed pestilence so successful was last year's event that we've decided to adopt the same format this time around. Indeed if there is a silver lining to our enforced separation and distancing it is online events like this one can reach and involve far more people than a normal conference. As of this morning a little over 300 people had registered to participate from all over the world which is far more I think than could have taken part if we were based solely in London. When I first began my own PhD over 20 years ago on Algeria and the Margrethe North Africa Middle East and studies in the UK was quite a small affair. It's wonderful therefore to see how it has grown over the intervening years and to see the level of attention in today's conference to see so many young scholars and researchers carrying out innovative and exciting work on the region. I'm very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts and your presentations and we've got three wonderful panels covering a fascinating blend of topics, themes and countries. Finally before I finish I'd just like to thank a few people starting with our keynote speaker this is Talakal Karman. I'm absolutely delighted to have you with us for taking the time to come and speak to us today and that you've accepted Sophia and her who's invitation. I'd also like to thank our panel chairs and present presenters without whom we obviously wouldn't have a conference at all. Thanks also to Lizzie Ellen, Daniel Mansfield into Inga Trouting for everything that they've done behind the scenes and everything they're going to do during the course of the day to make everything work smoothly and finally I'd like to offer a very big thank you to Sophia and a who who have been the brains behind and driving force behind today's event. Without you we wouldn't have a conference at all so thank you very much for everything you've done for today and with that I will hand over to a who. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us here today we are delighted to welcome you to the second of the three-part series of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies Conference. This year's conference is titled Tracing Instability Challenges and Change from Iran to the Gulf. Last year's conference focused on North Africa and the following one in autumn 2022 will focus on the Levant and Israel. My name is Ahu Kuches-Vahani and I'm delighted to be co-convener of this year's conference together with Sophia Patel who you will be meeting later this morning. We are members of the PhD student-run Middle East and North Africa research group which falls under the auspices of the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies at King's College London. This year's theme as mentioned in the title is Iran and the Gulf countries. This conference will offer new perspectives on how the region can respond to different pressing issues from the increasing threat of climate change to the struggle for equal rights and the ongoing tension among these regional neighbors. We are going to identify cross-cutting themes and provide insights into these challenges and their potential for change. We are very grateful for all of our speakers today but we also know that we have an accomplished audience here today with each of you equally talented in your respective field many whom do not focus on the academic realm day in and day out but who can provide an additional perspective in the conversation. We are hoping for a dynamic engagement today and for you the audience members to engage on the matters discussed today by each of our esteemed panelists. We are glad to also be able to again engage with a global community on this important topic through hosting this conference online for the second year running. On behalf of my colleagues I thank you for your time and your forthcoming questions. Please bear with me as I go through some important housekeeping notes. So please ask your questions in the Q&A box it can be anonymous and then the chair will work through them. Zoom links for each panel will open and be ready for you to join 15 minutes prior to each panel beginning so that we can start promptly and this conference will be live streamed on the War Studies YouTube channel so please bear in mind that anything you say will be accessible to the wider public. Now I am honored to present our distinguished keynote speaker the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mrs. Tawakol Karamon who received this prestigious award in recognition for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and her advocacy for women's rights in Yemen. So without further ado the floor is yours Mrs. Karamon. Thank you so much. Salamu alaykum. These be upon all of you. I'm so happy to be with you in King's College London the Institute of Middle Eastern Studies with this very important to discuss with you these very important issues. Actually many in this world specifically in the Middle East were wars and chaos ignited by regional powers namely Iran and Saudi are destabilizing countries and societies and where people are living harsh living conditions lacking in basic requirements of life and the rule of law. Most of these people you know believe that climate challenges global warming environment and the damage to natural ecosystem should not be addressed at the expense of their daily struggle. Some may consider such issues among the main concerns of the developed world whose countries and societies have succeeded in developing solutions to their basic needs and basic problems. Actually you know Iran is ruled by a dynastic sectarian regime imposes a totalitarian grip so the last thing on anyone's mind would be for such a regime to pay attention to the climate and environmental and economic stability. The Gulf states on the other hand are basically classified as consumer countries whose economic stability is based on the oil boom and therefore it is not in their dictionary to create a balanced development that takes into account the surrounding environment and the climate. However to me I see you know that global warming and the damage to the natural ecosystem due to industry economy and ways of life followed by humans of the modern area are issues of the paramount you know importance. Our today's struggle for protecting the environment and considering the urgent problems related to the ecosystem and global warming and other environment and ecological problems does not contradict our struggles of societies for justice, freedom, prosperity and democracy. Also we will discuss you know about 10 years you know after the Arab Spring and after our great peaceful revolution you know as you know 10 years ago we Arab people revolted against the local dictatorships in our countries. We sacrificed and still sacrificing for our ambitions our dreams for democracy for freedom for justice and for rule of law but unfortunately we discovered that the dictatorial regimes in the region are protected by the world order. Unfortunately the standing side by side in standing against our ambitions and you know dreams for freedom, dignity and democracy. In general there is setback in global trends that support the modern values system that you know prevailed in international you know trends from the end of world war second until the end of cold war so unfortunately it's today it's hard to talk about civil society and women's participation in the community you know leadership at you know time when shivenistic movements are coming back to the fore like the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Houthi militias in Yemen. Both movements you know have come back from the dark ages to have a place in the online era of the 21st century. Unfortunately our world today does not hesitate to recognize extremist militias that practice violence, declare wars on own you know societies, use cruelty and oppression as means to rule, see in women a shame, enslave the people, criminalize art, and antigenizing of freedoms and crackdown on rights. On the other hand the same world along you know with its global order and you know major powers is hostile to the Arab Spring and to the aspiration of people who have revolted for freedom, dignity, human rights and democracy. Unfortunately today's you know world which sees the Taliban as a fated company had dealt with our peaceful civilized revolutions as unforgivable crime.  Yesterday you know two you know democratic transformation heralded by the Arab Spring as a great threat to the international interests associated with you know tyrannical regimes. You know unfortunately this is what is happening today. Look what happened in Afghanistan as an example. According to the statement of President Biden and U.S. officials America has achieved its goals of war Al Qaeda has been eliminated and its leader Osama bin Laden has been killed. Here you know with this statement I don't think that the United States was interested in democracy in building peace in women's rights or in building you know a respectable democratic model. Of course you know there are local prerequisites you know for doing this but America didn't perform its duty in this context as it should it should and I'm talking about America as you know you know the leader they call them the leader of the free world and of course you know this is also this is also the position you know of all you know western countries. So the talk about western abandonment of democracy and women in Middle East special in Afghanistan in Iraq and all you know you know other you know countries seems less than what happened. Afghanistan and Iraq was abundant when the no real efforts were made to help them to help people to build a state that accommodates everyone and can defend in its citizens. America and west in general you know has taken care of the crusts and the crusts you know would not you know have you know lasted long. America and western governments went to Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting terrorism and made promises that a new Afghanistan would be without the Taliban. The meaning of the promises this promises was that civil democratic stable economically and politically regime would succeed you know the Taliban. This is the true comprehensive meaning of the fight against terrorism as it is supposed in such a way that it may be justified and give a little moral and humanitarian cover as the fight against terrorism is not only security wise bombing by planes and intense shooting rather it is a comprehensive process besides being security and military it is building an alternative democratic system. Otherwise victory will be you know for the extremism and terrorism so it's very important that the international community unfortunately has abandoned the people who call for freedom democracy and rule of law.  People as I said revolted peacefully for the sake of dignity the rule of law civil society equality and human rights. So that's the discussion on how does the world and its major powers look today at regime like the Assad regime in Syria. How come that the you know civilized western democratic world accept that you know such a criminal sectarian regime that has killed millions Syrians, displaced five millions and brought Iran and its militia together with Russia to Syria to help him to kill his own people. You know is there any difference between Milisevich and Bashar al-Assad or between those responsible for genocide in our countries you know that are much more cruel and criminal. What remains today of the slogans of western democracies especially in Europe and America after months you know decades of raising you know democracy freedom and human rights as a title of their policy.  So we need you know a renewed focus on civil society and women participation and this needs you know a new meaning which leads to restoring the image of you know the Arab revolutions of you know of change instead of the did margins of pre-2011 when the regimes contained international efforts directed to civil society and turned them into makeup to cover their children. Should we accept the issues of civil society and women's rights to be used as a decoration for the faces of regimes that have broken you know records in their wars against you know people against you know the revolutionary people against women against all human rights well the world remains silent about undermining the peaceful revolutions in Egypt Tunisia Tunisia Syria and Yemen thus returning to the same mechanisms of the pre-Arab spring you know years in those years you know the talk about civil society and women participation was you know a routine function of international and local organizations that used you know to help you know just seminars in hotels and ended up talking you know taking pictures. I want to hear finally you know and before talking about Yemen I want to say that our experience during you know the best decade inspires us to claim that there can be no freedom for women without freedom for the whole society. The rule of women in society is negatively and positively affected by the gains and sit-backs subjects you know to the society itself as you know evidenced by the events and the history with all its revolutions the rule of women in change must be at the forefront of women's efforts to free themselves from grievances exclusion operation and discrimination women will not have will not have their rightful place inside our societies without the entire society being liberated from tyrannical regimes and extremist religious militias.  The United Nation and major powers have failed to help Yemen stop the war and restore its state and the world has done nothing to stop you know the genocide against Yemenis. The major powers turn a blind eye to Iran and its support for the Houthi militias while at the same time siding with their interests with Saudi Arabia and the UAE at the expense of Yemen turning a blind eye to the crimes and violations of the regional parties in Yemen is nothing but betrayal and testing of support for warlords at home and for Iran, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi responsible for bloodshed in Yemen. The failure and inability of the international community to activate its collective mechanisms to stop war and economic collapse and help Yemenis restore their national state have contributed to the continuation of war and chaos and the growing humanitarian crisis. For seven years our people has been facing an all out war of revenge, a fierce war that represents a new pattern of undermining the life foundation of the entire population. The state collapsed and Houthi militia took over the capital and cities in light of the non-payment of salaries and the collapse of the health and services system. The Houthi militias have taken control of international aid. These militias have tampered with the content of curricula in areas under their control by imposing an extremist content, prohibited singing, took arbitrary measures against women and imposed a puritanical vision that abuses women. From other hand, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have bombed our cities and infrastructure, established militias loyal to them in the city of Aden, prevented the legitimate government from operating from the within the country and taking control of the key ports, oil, gas, facilities and strategic islands like Sokhetra and Nune. Millions of Yemenis are at risk of starvation, suffering from poor living conditions, war, chaos, non-payment of salaries and wages. So total absence of basic public service and rapidly deteriorating local currency. We call here on the wall to stop this brutal war against Yemeni people. We call on the world to support our people to restore their state and complete the transitional period in accordance with the three references represented by UN Security Council resolutions on Yemen, the agreement of transfer of power and the outcomes of the national dialogue. We call on the world to impose restrictions on warlords and militia leaders and not deal with them as political parties. We call upon the world to respect the rights of our people to life and put an end to fascist war rules, main parties are Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their affiliated militias. And while we call on the world, we people still believe and still struggle and still know our fate with democracy, with justice, with freedom and with the rule of law. We didn't and we will not lose our hope and we know that at the end we will be the victorious and we call the world to share with us this victory and no matter it will be today or tomorrow or tomorrow, but our destiny, Arab region, destiny is with democracy, freedom and rule of law. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. This is Carmen for an excellent and fantastic keynote presentation this morning. You expertly brought together the themes that we are going to discuss today in our three panels of our conference. And thank you for spotlighting the devastating struggles experienced by people in your home country of Yemen as well at the end, which is really very important. We need to keep discussing and keep the needs of those people on the table all day today and in future conversations as well. You're right, our struggles are not isolated or static. You rightly highlight the struggles for security, for democracy, for human rights, for women's rights, for the environment, do not contradict each other and they do not contradict the prosperity, equality or democracy. So with that, I would like to bring in our first panel of the day, which will be chaired by Dr Ferdinand Ibel, who is a lecturer in political economy at King's College London. And he is a program director of the MA in politics and economics at the Middle East, having completed a PhD at the University of Oxford a while ago. So Dr Ibel, I will hand over to you to introduce our panelists and to introduce the panel as well. And I'll leave it to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sophia. And welcome everybody to the first panel of the KCL Imus Annual Conference. As Sophia said, I'm Ferdinand Ibel. I work in the Department of Political Economy here at King's College. And I have the great pleasure to chair this exciting and very timely panel on environmental economic instability. Can the Gulf go green? The distinguished speakers on the panel are Karim Al-Gendi. He's founder and coordinator of Krabun, an advocacy initiative promoting sustainable cities in the Middle East and North Africa. For his work, Karim received the prestigious Global Green Building Entrepreneurship Award. And with his expertise in sustainable architecture and urban planning, he also supports Chatham House as an associate fellow. The second speaker is Seina Khalil-Hajj, head of global campaigning and organizing at 350, a global climate campaigning organization. SINAP has more than 25 years of experience in campaigning and political and social advocacy, having previously worked for Greenpeace, especially as instrumental in expanding Greenpeace into the Middle East and North Africa. And our third speaker will be Shereen Haqqeem, post-graduate researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Tampere College London. After research experience at distinguished places such as Harvard, Cornell and Tehran University, Shereen has come to London to conduct a research project on the environmental impact of sanctions on Iran. Her area of expertise includes sustainable development in the Middle East, water resource management, a very important topic, and environmental policies. Each speaker will have 15 minutes for their presentations. And once we've completed all presentations, we'll open the floor for Q&A and discussion. Please use the Q&A function in Zoom to let us know your questions and we will come to these questions once the presentations are completed. So without any further ado, let's begin with the first presentation by Karima Gindy, titled Climate Change Challenges and Climate Action in the Persian Gulf. Karim, the floor is yours. Great. Can you, if you can see my screen and hear me, let me know. Yep, both is fine. Great. Okay, so thank you for the introduction. It's my pleasure to take part in this conversation about climate around the Gulf and climate issues. So given the fact that I will go first, I feel obliged to give some historical background to set the scene if you like before I review the state of climate change and climate action in the region. But 8,000 years ago, that's really historical background. 8,000 years ago, the Earth axis shifted slowly, approximately two degrees, or start of that process of shifting. This caused a number of changes to the global climate, including a slow transformation of the large bands of grasslands north and south of the equator into deserts. This includes the areas that we now know as the Arabian desert and also the Iranian desert, the Deshtikarir. So these deserts, big deserts, lacked accessible water. They lacked biocapacity or the ability to produce useful organic matter, like food. It also lacked moderate climate, which rendered most of the region uninhabitable to put it bluntly and left only a few locations that could sustain a human life. So these locations are either at the edges of the desert, like the fertile crescent, for example, or in geographic locations with unique characteristics, quirks, if you like, like accessible water or high altitude. And some of these human settlements were within the borders of the modern nation states surrounding the Gulf, like Iraq, Iran, and Oman, all of which had some water and some biocapacity. But these settlements were not necessarily oriented to the Gulf waters. And while this desert was forming, another process, another long-term process, was also taking place. At the end of the last Ice Age, around 12,000 years ago, the body of water that we now know as the Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf did not exist. Instead, the area was covered in sand dunes, basically, except for some lakes and also the Tigris Euphrates River meandering across it from Mesopotamia, all across it into the Arabian Sea. When the glaciers and ice sheets started to melt at the end of the Ice Age, the sea levels rose around the world. This is a global phenomenon and see what's from the Gulf of Oman, which is much, much deeper, flooded into these lowlands that we now know as the Gulf. So sea levels rose by a whopping 125 meters until they peaked one or two meters above where they are today. And that was four or five thousand years ago before dropping to the present levels, where they basically remained stable for the last two and a half thousand years. So making the most out of this stable Holocene climate, humans built human settlements like fishing and trading ports around the Gulf. These were connected to larger trade nutrients, trade networks like the Silk Route or the Frankincense Route. But these places had very little water and very little biocapacity. Remember, this was a sand dune that got covered in water. And their climate was basically defined by the Gulf itself. And let me explain this. The Gulf's shallow waters, its tropical location, it's quite warm, and its high exposure to solar radiation, there's very little cloud cover there, have all produced warm waters and high levels of evaporation and also humidity, which rendered the areas surrounding the Gulf quite humid, as well as being warm. And these high levels of evaporation and the fact that the Gulf also has one inlet, so its water only gets replenished every five to seven years, had also made the Gulf waters quite highly saline. This is basically the basic environmental conditions around which anything would happen around the Gulf waters. So the discovery of oil and gas within and also surrounding the Gulf over the last century has effectively transformed this region. It led to rapid rise in trade across this water, mostly oil and gas exports to start with. And this fueled extensive coastal development and urbanization all around it. Rapid expansion of fossil fuel exports also created trade surpluses. And these available financial resources, these trade surpluses, together with the globalization of hinterlands, enabled food imports and virtual water imports from beyond the region. And also enabled importation of technologies such as desalination and air conditioning. And all of these things together effectively improved the conditions for human settlement. It made it possible to settle at these locations, which lacked, as I say, water by capacity or a moderate climate. And as a result, people settled and that fueled population growth, which is what we had experienced over the last century. So today, less than a century after the advent of discovery of oil, a sense or a false sense of resource abundance permeates the region, which makes it which makes it really hard to understand, given that it masks the fact that this region lives beyond its sustainable natural resources. In fact, every country around the Gulf has a high ecological deficit, which is the an ecological deficit, the difference between the biocapacity of the land and also the ecological footprint of the people who live on this land. And this deficit continues to grow. Oman, Iran, and Iraq, as you can see on this diagram on the left hand side had some resources, some extra biocapacity for a while, but that all that changed in the 70s and most of them in the 90s in the case of Oman. So human settlements in this region, if I may sum up, emerged against great odds, perhaps more than any other region in the world. They emerged only in the locations that could sustain them and they grew only as much as can be supported by the immediate hinterland. But the renter economies of the Gulf have quickly turned this region into an urban region that operates far, far beyond its ecological capacity. And the region in fact is one of the most urbanized in the world, which theoretically promises environmental, social, and economic benefits. In fact, the coastal states of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates were effectively born urban, so they were always highly urbanized. But overall, the region's urbanization levels as a whole far exceed the global average, they exceed the Arab world average and they exceed the EU average. We're talking about a really urbanized region, which as I say, theoretically is a positive thing. Yet unfortunately, these urban areas did not reap the efficiencies and the environmental benefits of urbanization. In fact, this highly urbanized region is one of the least environmentally sustainable. It is of course a function of their location, which I alluded to earlier, but it's also partly due to how these cities and infrastructure was planned. Its cities had ultra-low density, they were planned with districts of single use, and just to explain, this process of building a really low density with single-use functions or single-use planning increases demand for mobility from one zone to another. It reduces economic viability of mass transportation, doesn't really make it possible to have decent public transportation networks. It discouraged walking and cycling, it reduced the energy efficiency in buildings themselves, it increased the material use in roads and infrastructure and utilities, etc. The mobility networks of this region were designed of an American model that was entirely planned for private cars, and that limited the use of efficient public transportation networks, I mean further limited it, and also further removed the viability of walking and cycling within those cities. The region also had has very few reliable public transportation networks, and on top of that the subsidized fuel prices have effectively disincentivized the transition to any form of energy efficiency mobility, including public transportation. The building stock in the region is full of poorly insulated homes, fully glazed offices, and hundreds of thousands of inefficient air conditioning units and appliances, and again subsidized electricity prices have removed any incentive for building in a more efficient way. Water scarcity has also played a role in this and this poor levels of sustainability in cities of the region. The lack of water in parts of the region has led to a wide adoption of energy intensive desalination, which had an associated carbon emission, but also a quite an intense environmental impact. In fact, the gulf waters are estimated to have increased in salinity by 2 percent over a span of just 20 years due to due to desalination alone. And remember that water only gets flushed every five to seven years by water from the global ocean system. In countries with water like Iraq and Iran, the poor water management has led to degradation of the water resources themselves, like for example the Karun river in Kazakhstan, and this was also in effect or as a result of the economic sanctions of Western economic sanctions, whether Iranian reaction to Western economic sanctions. Across the board, direct and indirect water subsidies in the form of water subsidies and also energy subsidies that support water conveyance or transportation has contributed to this as well by reducing any incentive to save water. In some countries, the water wasn't even metered or paid for, which made it very hard to control the levels of consumption of water. And ultimately, all of these factors have been reflected in one metric, which is carbon emissions. It is true that the Middle East in general has very little historic responsibility for carbon emissions compared to Europe or North America, for example. And you can see on this diagram at the very top, the Middle East is really a small slither of contribution to emissions from the advent of the industrial age to today. And the Gulf region is responsible for even less. However, the Gulf region is now home to two of the world's biggest carbon emitters, and that's Iran and Saudi Arabia. It represents 4.7% of global emissions, while only representing 2.4% of the global population. So in other words, the carbon emissions of an average resident of this region is twice the global average. And this is also true when regional countries are examined individually. In fact, the eight countries around the Gulf have high emissions per capita and per dollar of GDP, which exceeds the global average on both fronts. But the Gulf countries aren't just contributing to climate change. They're also at risk of its impacts. Under the worst climate change scenario, average temperatures could rise by up to 4.8 degrees C, while maximum temperatures could rise up up to 7 degrees. In fact, the average temperature in Saudi Arabia has already increased by more than 2 degrees compared to 1980s. So that's in my lifetime, while the maximum temperature has increased by two and a half degrees. And these increases would in general be more intense or more felt in inland cities compared to coastal cities, but perhaps the most alarming thing about increasing temperatures is the combined effect of rising maximum temperatures and the high humidity around the Gulf waters that I referred to earlier. So under the worst case scenario, coastal cities around the Gulf, by the end of the century, could experience something called a wet bulb temperature, which is a combined metric of temperature as well as relative humidity. They could experience a wet bulb temperature that could reach the limits of human adaptability, the ability of humans to regulate their own internal temperature, which could bring about summer days where it would be fatal to be outside for a few hours. The Hajj, for example, which shifts by 11 days every year is also expected to be affected when it occurs in the summer, because as I say, has a cycle of 33 years, cycle of 33 years to the solar year, but it will be affected to a lesser extent, but it could certainly be affect those that infirm the elderly and those who are less able in the same way because of the effect of the wet bulb temperature, the increased wet bulb temperature. And this perhaps was the most alarming thing that got most of the media attention for a while. The climate change also brings about rainfall via variability and extreme weather events. And that means more droughts and more storms in hurricanes. As the Gulf waters continue to warm, they are already warm, but as they continue to warm further, they will continue to attract tropical cyclones from the Arabian Sea towards India into the warming Gulf of Oman. So the Gulf waters get warmer, they make the Gulf of Oman warmer, attracts hurricanes into it, like we saw in Hurricane Guna a few years ago. And just last week, Hurricane Shaheen was the first tropical cyclone on record to hit the northern shores of Oman, causing quite a bit of damage, but it hasn't affected any of the major cities or ports. And this presents a risk of urban flooding. This increase in storms and hurricanes obviously affects cities that are predisposed to flooding. So that includes cities like Muscat and Jeddah, which have challenging topography vis-a-vis hydrology and storm water management. The low-lying coastal areas around the Gulf that were once underwater, some 4,000 years ago, are also at risk of inundation again by the end of the century, under the worst-case scenario. The full extent of that, I will come to this in a minute, is what we are talking about. But the only difference this time around is that they have cities and infrastructure on them. So yes, they were inundated once and they could get inundated again as a result of anthropogenic climate change. But this time around, we do have quite a bit of investment on these lands. And the areas that are most at risk from this are long-term, if I may call it sea-level rise under both the medium and the worst-case scenarios are the south of Iraq and the southwest of Iran. So again, Khuzestan. But many cities along the southern literal of the Gulf are also at risk. So that's Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Manama. And yes, these estimates are long-term estimates. So when the full effects of climate change of Arctic ice and glaciers and ocean water expansion, when all of these things are reflected in sea-level, we will see these full sea-level rises that are shown in these diagrams. Having said that, yes, they could take decades, but for it to reach that peak, we could already be locked in. In other words, if we emit the levels of carbon associated with each of these scenarios, positive feedback loops, tipping points could basically lock us in for any of those associated sea-level rises. And it could be very hard to reverse. So yes, they look like they're so far away. As I say, it takes centuries to get to the full extent. But we could know by the end of this century that this will definitely happen and these areas will get fully inundated. So especially at risk, are these new coastal developments, these are likely to be affected just by the end of this century, not necessarily by the full-term sea-level rise, are these new coastal developments, backfill elevated lands, all these developments beyond the coastline are likely to be affected first. You find those in Doha and Manama. So the point I'm trying to make is there are short-term sea-level rise impacts and long-term sea-level rise impacts and none of them are pleasant and afraid. So now all of this may seem very serious and perhaps even bleak. And unfortunately, for a long time, it was also compounded by poor climate action from countries around the Gulf. Historically, countries throughout the region, citing historic responsibility or lack thereof, were generally reluctant to take climate action that relates to mitigating their emissions and have tended to focus mostly on adaptation. And I could discuss that in the Q&A session perhaps. Iran's INDC or its pledge under the Paris Agreement, which is yet to ratify, signals its plan to reduce its emissions by just 4% to 12% by 2030 and only if it had its sanctions removed, which is quite modest given the fact that its economy operates really inefficiently and could really improve much better than that by using simple measures. Similarly, Iraq plans to reduce its emissions by 1% to 14% by 2035. And until last year, almost all GCC countries had no plans to reduce their emissions by a fixed percentage, except for Oman, which promised 2% reduction. But this year, we saw an increase in climate ambition ahead of COP26. Qatar set a target to reduce its emissions by 25%. The UAE plans a reduction of 23.5% and Oman, its increased target slightly 4% to 7%. Saudi Arabia, the large country amongst all the GCC countries, is also widely expected to announce emission reduction targets. Significant is the word that one has heard in a couple of weeks in line with its ambitious Saudi Green Initiative, which was announced back in March. But just a word of caution here, like many developing countries, all of these reduction targets are not absolute reductions. They're not comparable to a baseline year. They're all reductions compared to a theoretical business as usual scenario chosen by each country. So it can sometimes lead to less growth rather than actual reduction. But in addition to these national plans, sectoral climate action has also been gathering pace around the region. And I will go through these fairly quickly. Countries around the Gulf have all taken measures to reduce their energy subsidies over the last few years. There was an opportunity because of the fall of oil and gas revenues in 2014, provided many of the GCC countries an opportunity to reform their subsidies. Oman, for example, abolished all energy subsidies. Qatar and the UAE slashed their subsidies. And Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait have all cut their subsidies in half roughly between 2014 and 2016. The Iranian subsidy reform program, which was announced in 2010, made good progress initially, but ultimately failed due to technical issues, due to data, and to do with data as well as obviously economic sanctions. Many regional countries have also developed national energy efficiency plans with varying levels of implementation. Several countries have mandatory energy efficiency regulations for their buildings. Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai and the UAE all have mandatory energy efficiency now. Minimum energy performance standards have been developed for appliances, for air conditioning, for lighting fixtures all across the region. And the region has also seen positive developments towards sustainable cities, including urban mobility. And that includes construction of metro networks in Gryad and Doha, these were complete networks built in one go, as well as the existing networks of course in Tehran and in Dubai. More plans are underway for other projects like metro network in Shiraz and Tabriz, in Abu Dhabi, in Mashhad, in Basra, and in Abu Dhabi, but we don't know when they were going to happen. There are monorails planned and light rails planned in Baghdad, in Manama, and Abu Dhabi, and there are bus rapid transit and slow bus networks planned all around the Gulf. But probably the most striking development to do with climate action in this region is that countries of this region have discovered the renewable energy potential in terms of their solar photovoltaic potential, in terms of their solar thermal potential, and in terms of their wind power potential. Saudi Arabia, for example, plans to source 50% of its electricity from renewables by 2030, and that's a rise from 0.3% today to 50% in nine years time. The UAE plans to source 44% of its energy of electricity from renewables by 2050. Oman, Qatar, Kuwait all aim to increase the renewable energy capacity by to 30%, 20% and 15% respectively, and while other regional countries have more targets, but they tend to be more modest. And while targets are revised all the time, and in some cases in the past, targets have been missed and updated, renewable energy is definitely on the rise, simply because it's now more economic than new electricity generation powered by fossil fuel. Almost every year now, we see a new record breaking low cost of electricity produced by renewable energy sources coming from the GCC countries. We do see that from other countries, sometimes Portugal or Mexico, but the GCC tends to dominate this race towards the cheapest renewable energy produced. This year, just this year, the cost of solar photovoltaic. Apologies for interrupting. Just a quick reminder of the time frame, if you could wrap up relatively soon. Thank you. So this year, the cost of solar photovoltaic fell to an impressive 1 cent per kilowatt hour, while the cost of wind power fell to 2 cents per kilowatt hour. And these costs are cheaper than any known source of energy. And that is a real transformation. How far will it go? And how quickly will it expand? That is the remaining question. So on that positive note, I will end my remarks and I look forward to the conversation after my colleagues' remarks. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kareem, for a fascinating and also very alarming presentation that surely will stir many questions in a great discussion. Let's move to our second speaker, that is Seyna Khalilharj. She will present on a paper entitled Environmental and Economic Challenges Facing the Persian Gulf Region. Seyna, you have the floor. Thank you, Abel, and thank you, Kareem, for a historic and all-round presentation on what basically the Gulf is facing and what steps are taken. I want to focus my speech and I don't have a slide for you, but I'm going to talk about basically the question that is the headline of our session. Actually, can the Gulf go green? As an activist, as the woman from the region that care about its survival and its future, my hope is that the answer is yes and the answer is actually they have to go green. There is no choice but to go green. However, as Kareem showed, the steps are coming, but the steps are a bit late. The steps as well are looking at a bit more of face-lifting, the situation. What I want to highlight and what I want to say is that to go green, there's a fundamental step that needs to be done by the Gulf countries in terms of their policies, in terms of their economy, and in terms of the investment that they are making. The economic aspect is so important because this region has been fundamentally dependent on fossil fuel and carbon and oil for its own survival, for its own existence and for its own economy. But in this era of climate change and this era of after the Paris Agreement where we are required as a population on the planet to basically cut down our carbon emission and maintain basically no exceeding of 1.5 degree the emissions that we're seeing. We cannot continue to have basically this entire dependence on fossil fuel. We really need to shift and the economy in the Gulf has an extra duty to basically shift that basically reliance on this industry. Not because they need to, from the commitment that they gave and made in the Paris Agreement, but they need that for their own survival and for their own population growth and for their own ability to still function from an economic point of view because there will be no market for the oil. There will be no market basically to absorb what they are producing and they have a duty basically to shift on that. So I want to focus on two things. First the environmental impact that is affecting their day-to-day life beyond what Karim outlined and as well is there a possibility for this economy to shift and what they have been doing so far and actually what they need to do more. First on the environmental impact. It's not going to be in the coming years. We're seeing the climate impact already. You know Cyclone Shaheen that hit the region this weekend, this last weekend hitting Oman, hitting Iran is just a reminder of what the region going to continue to face from heat waves, from floods, I mean Jeddah flooded, right? So this is you know this extreme weather. We're going to continue to see them. We're going to continue to see them more often and they're going to start affecting the life of the people. They're going to actually contribute sadly to losses of life and that cannot basically just you know be accepted as a price we have to pay and sadly the preparedness of the region to this kind of situation is very very limited. So there is an action that need to be done on that front. As I said these climate impacts are happening but as well on a daily level now the region is actually suffering from the impact of its reliance on fossil fuel and I want to give a highlight on air pollution for example. Air pollution is a silent killer that is actually affecting people's life on daily basis. In a study that was done in 2020 by Greenpeace the region is actually facing per year 65,000 premature death because of the reliance on fossil fuel. The extraction, the production, and the use of car within our life is actually contributing to death of people. This actually price is not only premature death it actually costs on the economy. For a country like United Arab Emirates this is contributing to about six billion dollars per annum, cost of treatment, health sector. These are prices that you know are daily adding to the economic disbalance that the region basically is living under and has to basically deal with and face. Karim talked about the desalination water scarcity in the region is a serious issue that has been going on for many many years and climate impact and climate change are going to just basically aggravate that and add to basically the use, the reliance on desalination which now actually use a lot of oil to be produced. For example in Saudi Arabia this is taking 10 percent of their oil consumption so it's very high as well cost that is coming beside the environmental impact on it and a transition to basically secure their water resources maybe as well make desalination more reliant on renewable energy as a way forward to transition is the way forward for this region to basically live and start planning ahead because there is you know having access to energy and producing energy that is currently too cheap because it's entirely reliant on oil. Having access to water and extracting water from the ocean which as well as reliant now on oil is actually adding to the aggravation of the environment and the reliance on the water resources. The region entirely depend in a lot of countries of it on the import of its food so basically its stability is actually under threat and if we continue with this model there is basically not much of reason to be hopeful I'm afraid so therefore the region need to basically revisit its economic model need to revisit basically its investment need to revisit basically the regulation that they are putting they started finally to make this commitment and I think the list that Kareem showed is a much clearer list of what I would add personally but they have started investing in renewables they have started to set regulation on you know cutting their emission but really what need to be done to make this region going green and to make this region fit and viable and its economic development for the future is that this region need to start investing in diversifying its economy seriously because the economy currently entirely depend on oil and fossil fuel and gas and that really need to shift drastically. Few country has been going into the spot so we have seen United Arab Emirates for many years now working on not making their GDP and their growth from an economic point of view dependent only on gas and fossil fuel exports but not all the country have done this and in current the economic development and where we're going in the era after Paris and the fact that you know we're gonna have to cut down our consumption on fossil fuel their economy is under threat and the sooner and the earlier they start investing in basically alternative economy it's gonna be making their future economic stability more solid so as I said United Arab Emirates has been doing a lot of that investment Qatar Saudi Arabia are catching up but countries like Iraq like Kuwait are still very far on the strand and the fear basically is that if they do not basically start making a lot of step into shifting their economic dependency on fossil fuel they will basically be too late for the future development of the population and the future development of the countries themselves. So for me you know it's super important that these countries basically start identifying the investment that are needed in basically diversifying the sources of their economy to basically look at what other services within the economy can be basically beefed, supported, protected and basically invested in whether it's the agriculture sector whether it is the industrial sector whether it is the service sector or even tourism right so this is basically what this region really this region really need to basically invest and develop we've seen that for example the sanction on Iran has forced the country to basically because they're not allowed to export to basically look at other way of delivering their livelihood delivering their food delivering their water but of course this is not sufficient and they're not basically getting the opportunity to be able to stand on their feet on this so these countries has to basically start looking at an access of food, water and energy in any policy that they make in order for them to survive in the long term and in order for them as well to build an economy that is viable and will allow them to basically to sustain their nation their nation and make it viable for their population for me you know like when we talk about this prioritization of financial investment that are needed now to shift the economy that are needed now to invest in new technologies to invest in new way of operating the economy a new way to basically produce water a new way to produce their food or to stop reliant on on just food import this is where we start tackling a key challenge that all this economy have which is job this region has the highest unemployment for youth in the world countries like Saudi Arabia has unemployment and it's up to 25 percent this is huge quite has it at 15 percent right these are really high number for it's a young generation that is keen to operate that is keen to basically be part of the development of society so making this new investment whether it is in renewable nor a new technology nor a new way basically of making the economy viable is not only going to help shift that economy slowly but can help basically create job to give you an example. Irina has done a study about the investment in renewable energy and what would that create so an investment in renewable energy by 2030 can actually create up to 200 000 new job in a region particularly in photovoltaic investment because that's what the region is basically immensely great at as a source so you know like shifting the way that the economy and the way the investment are happening are vital and this is where this region need to start really investing need to start not just investing its current viability of money but as well start changing the regulation and start changing the laws that will allow basically this investment and this basically new technology and new methodology to be operational so we need to talk of a new economy we need to talk of new technologies we need to talk of really reliant on the new generation that basically can take the region forward allow it to find jobs allow it basically to start being competitive economically and not just still in the old era of the past past economy that in the coming future it will not have a future in the coming future relying your economy on purely fossil fuel is definitely not going to be the way forward so what I want to end with is these are very difficult decision to make these are very as well harsh step that cannot be done easily and without a very strong commitment from the government and the authorities in those countries without very strong commitment to gather investment make basically possibility for this investment to happen in the region we will basically not be viable for the future these tough decision can be made we can't just wait for them to be forced on us and why I'm saying they can be made and they should not be forced on us because I think we've all have seen with the COVID experience that we've all have gone to is that when we're forced to do something we've actually changed laws change behavior change everything in our day to day life because we have to climate change is actually giving us a warning that we have to change so let's not wait till the floods the heat wave and everything is basically preventing us from living our life let's start now to shift the economy the dependence invest in technology invest basically in our own people and make the future for them liveable and make it economically viable thank you thank you very much Dana for this fascinating talk and sharing your thoughts on the future of the Gulf and the change in the economic model I'd like now to go to our last but certainly not the least speaker we have Shireen Hakim now and her presentation with the title the impact of economic sanctions on the environment the Iranian example please can you see my slide yeah very clear thank you very much for the introduction I'm very delighted to be here to share my paper on the impact of economic sanctions on the environment the Iranian example this paper is a work in progress and has contributions from my PhD research at the Center for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London so as a foreign policy tool sanctions regimes have been used throughout history of their popularity swelling significantly after the end of the Cold War since then economic sanctions aims have been commonly understood as altering the political or military behavior of a target who is considered to have flaunted principles of the international community economic sanctions are imposed by states or international organizations and are generally targeted at states or state level actors nonetheless the economic impacts of this punitive tool are felt throughout the society of the sanctioned state where the burden of sanctions often affects the citizenry the most as one of the most heavily sanctioned countries of the past decades the Islamic Republic of Iran hereafter Iran offers a prime opportunity to examine the consequences of economic sanctions on different aspects of society over the past 40 plus years starting with the US hostage crisis in 1979 Iran has been subject to varying degrees of economic and financial sanctions primarily imposed by the United States the intensity of sanctions has changed over the course of history from chiefly unilateral imposition by the United States since the 1980s to multilateral imposition in 2006 when stakes rose regarding concerns over Iran's nuclear program and the United Nations Security Council and European Union joined the US to impose the most extensive phase of comprehensive multilateral sanctions on Iran in history before what followed it with the Trump presidency the period between 2015 and 2018 saw a lifting of most of the economic sanctions under the joint comprehensive plan of action also known as the Iran deal negotiated between Iran and the p5 plus one states this short-lived alleviation lasted only until May 2018 when the Trump administration with true from the deal and reimposed harsh us sanctions with an approach of maximum pressure on Iran so my research is primarily focused on the escalation of multilateral sanctions on Iran between the years of 2006 to 2016 and proceeding the JCPOA but I will also draw on some more recent examples and this is largely because of data availability and the multilateral effects of the sanctions so economic sanctions against Iran have range from bans and restrictions on nuclear investments arms exports and petroleum trade to freezing assets of individual entities and blocking access to international banking the detrimental impacts of these sanctions on Iran's economy and growth has been widely examined and studied but the efficacy of sanctions on Iran in achieving its policy goals of curbing Iran's nuclear development military expansion and influence in the region remains contested so apart from Iran's economic difficulties from prolonged sanctions the nation is also home to a host of environmental problems we see water scarcity has entered a critical phase due to mismanagement of local resources and the consequences of prolonged drought the nation's agricultural sector depends on outmoded technologies and knowledge both of which impede Iran's ability to effectively manage its transforming landscape Iran's agriculture sector uses roughly 92 percent of the country's water resources but accounts only for a mere 10 percent of the economy furthermore Iranian cities are currently ranked amongst the world's top 10 most polluted due to the poor use the poor quality of petroleum that's used in heavy industrial activity dust and sand storms have become more frequent in recent years further contributing to issues of air pollution hefty energy subsidies have also promoted the over consumption of water and energy amongst the public moreover Iran is in the midst of significant biodiversity loss land agitation water pollution and desertification so how do sanctions relate to the environment the implications of sanctions often contradict sustainable development by targeting the central sectors of a target nations economy in developing countries and in particular in oil based economies like Iran this often manifests in targeting industrial activity which is a significant contributor to the government budget and livelihoods of the country so we find that while sanctions have claimed to be targeted at the regime and not the people of Iran the reinstated sanctions on Iran and previous sanctions regimes have targeted critical sectors of the country's economy such as the energy shipping automotive aviation and financial sectors which all are also crucial to sustainable development and human prosperity so this brings us to the aims and objectives of this paper whilst there is a wealth of research dedicated to the empirical study of the efficacy of sanctions and the humanitarian impacts of sanctions there has been limited critical work contributing to the examination of the impact of sanctions on the environment traditionally literature on sanctions has primarily focused on the effectiveness of sanctions by attempting to define their success by developing a means for measuring their achievement conversely there's a growing field of scholars working on a different approach with a critical lens and this approach focuses on the ethics and legality and humanitarian implications of this policy tool on human populations this field of work has become increasingly popular following the 1990 to 2003 comprehensive sanctions on Iraq which resulted in no desired outcome and in great human suffering and was a monumental moment in sanctions history that called into question the foundations and ethics of this policy tool so my research aims to build on this critical field of sanctions literature to certain whether economic sanctions have in fact acted as an impediment to Iran's environmental protection and sustainable development goals and we also look at how the global community can assist countries such as Iran in reaching their sustainable goals under economic and political constraints I'm going to in the interest of time just going to skip over that slide on the methods so an examination of the causal dynamics of the coupled human environment system in Iran provides insight on the indirect impact sanctions have had on limiting Iran's sustainable development first it's important to acknowledge that coupled human environment systems are complex and multifaceted and and not binary and thus it's difficult to separate the direct and indirect impacts of sanctions on Iran so that most of the studies that are conducted on the impacts of sanctions on human populations have limitations whether they're empirical or if they're qualitative so in our analysis we recognize that local mismanagement is a key contributor to the current state of Iran's economy and environment but we also acknowledge that prolonged sanctions on Iran have created obstacles for Iran to sustainably develop and safeguard its environment and that internal and external variables in Iran compound with these circumstances to result in the situation we have today so system dynamics was used I'm just going to skip over the complex diagram and use a more simplified version here so the central argument of this paper is that economic sanctions cannot be viewed as a direct cause for environmental harm but that the secondary impacts of sanctions can induce difficulties or act as catalysts in generating environmental issues in a target state intuitively sanctions can divert a nation off its initial growth path and this is due to secondary effects such as recessions economic isolation high rates of unemployment and deteriorated health outcomes amongst the general population so this diagram just depicts the process of economic stress from sanctions and the dynamics that bring it to inadvertent environmental impacts so we have sanctions imposed stresses on the economy and this often manifests in the decline GDP increase rates of inflation we see as in the case of Iran a significant decrease in foreign direct investments and difficulty in trade and this effectively increases prices for the import and export of goods effectively weakening the economy and making budget allocations for the government more difficult and weaker so with a weakened private sector due to fewer foreign direct investments we see that the public sector in sanctioned countries often has to step in and is now functioning with fewer resources so they must take care of more responsibilities with a weaker budget and we see overall productivity declines as public services decline in other factor in sanctioned countries is that with fewer exchanges in technology and education and with difficulties in banking we see there's stagnation of domestic development and many essential products must be produced domestically but now with fewer resources so this generates significant resource strain and in the case of Iran the government in 2012 as a retaliation to the strength of sanctions introduced the resistance economy model and this was a way to kind of create a robust economy and string a strong position in the face of western sanctions but we see that this has had detrimental impacts on sustainable development and the long-term environmental cost for the country effectively this leads to short-term solutions so a sanctioned country is always functioning in survival mode adopting short-term solutions and as they do not have the capacity to think long-term with with an uncertain future as sanctions are often unpredictable and so we see that often countries that are under the imposition of sanctions prioritize their defense or their economy and environmental matters are placed at a lower priority and this can inadvertently induce environmental impacts so the previous slide is supported by this foundational understanding provided by the the cousin's curve the environmental cousin's curve which exhibits a non-linear relationship between the environmental degradation per capita and here it's GDP per capita so this is just to reiterate the points from the previous diagram but we can we see that typically as economies begin to develop environmental damage and pollution surpasses the level of income per capita but the concept is that they can be reversed as economic growth increases because higher GDP per capita can result in environmental improvements and investments in sustainable development and this ultimately results in an eventual fall in in level of environmental degradation but unfortunately in the in the case of sanctioned countries this turning point that's realized it denoted here as p3 is it's not possible for them to to pass the p3 point and this is because of factors such as economic decline decline in GDP per capita and we can purchasing power to invest in environmentally friendly transition so we see that sanctioned countries do not have the capacity to diversify their economies with ease even after a certain point of economic growth and this effectively keeps them in a position where the level of environmental degradation is on a positive trajectory so to further exemplify the secondary consequences of sanctions I will highlight just a few examples from our case study of Iran so one of the examples from our research is that international aid has been indirectly impacted by economic sanctions and one example is that of the World Bank and it's subsidiary the global environmental facility in regards to international aid the US is obliged to vote against multinational lending to nations the US State Department deems country supporting terrorism and we are seeing as Iran is listed as a sponsor of terrorism by the US State Department the US is obliged to vote against World Bank loaning to Iran so whilst it is true that the US can be overpowered by other member nations of the UN usually if there isn't a US objection the loans are not accepted so we see that the global environmental sorry the global environment facility GEF which finances environmental projects in developing countries is not only a subset of the World Bank but the World Bank being based in the United States and being subjected to the complications of US sanctions the Iran has not been able to receive any new allocations of financial resources from the fund since 2005 there have been no new loans granted to Iran another example that's quite interesting about the secondary consequences of sanctions on Iran is fuel and air pollution sorry air pollution as a consequence of poor quality fuel use and in 2010 we saw that Iranians were consuming roughly 70 million liters per day of gasoline but the country's refineries domestic refineries were designed to produce only around 40 million liters so essentially what happened was short-term fixes under the Ahmadinejad presidency were proposed in 2010 to meet local demand because Iran could no longer export its oil to its European partners for it to be refined so refineries were forced to run above full capacity and without regular maintenance and we see a poor quality petroleum was produced pyrolysis by it's a byproduct of crude oil when fed into petrochemical factories and it can be used as a synthetic fuel but it's still under study for its safety and this is one of the contributory reasons for why air pollution peaked in the years during following Ahmadinejad's reform in this regard and it's had detrimental impacts on the quality of air locally and lastly resource dependence is also an interesting example to look at and this I touched on this earlier but seeing as sanctions targeted Iran's central oil sector this placed immense stress on the industry that was accountable for Iran's main flow of foreign exchange and revenue so we see substantial pressure was placed on Iran's local mining, automobile, farming and petrochemical industries to strengthen production levels but of course this had great costs in the long term in terms of resource strain and this table here just exhibits that 2000 production rate versus the 2011 production rate and how they've significantly trans-increased so the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in the Paris agreement was integrated in the UNFCCC at the Earth Summit in Rio of 1992 and encompasses a communal obligation for all nations in safeguarding our climate but acknowledges that developed and developing countries have contributed differently to climate exchange historically and consequently have differing duties and abilities and contributing to a more sustainable future so I believe Karim raised this but in Iran's intended nationally determined contribution this is one of the motivations of this research that was submitted to the UNFCCC Paris climate conference in 2015. Sanctions are mentioned seven times in the 10-page document and Iran pledges to commit to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 4% only if sanctions are removed and not placed on the nation again and this specification presents to the international community how difficult sustainable development has been for Iran amidst economic obstacles furthermore it presents how unfeasible Iran views it to for the international community to expect improvements and it's an environment and sustainable development without access to the transfer of foreign direct investments and essential technologies from developed nations. In recent years there have been many humanitarian issues that could have been avoided in Iran relating to disaster risk management and the environment this includes the flash floods in March 2019 which devastated 26 provinces within Iran and the head of the Iranian Red Crescent Society indicated that which is the equivalent of the Red Cross and that Iran could not welcome international aid due to a lack of banking channels as a consequence of sanctions so this just illustrates to what extent sanctions have crippled Iran's capacity to receive aid and from the international community during testing times and so since the reenactment of the maximum pressure campaign Iran's European partners have attempted to find mechanisms to facilitate humanitarian aid namely for medicine through the means of a special purpose vehicle like Instex but this was met with great difficulty and much to know avail. So Shireen if I could just briefly remind me of the time if you could wrap up please. I'm almost I just have one more one more slide yes please thank you so this brings me to the human rights implications of sanctions and that's also integrated into the paper that we're working on and essentially so to assist the international community in in in aiding Iran countries like Iran that have been ostracized from the international community to reach their nationally determined contributions we use the we borrow and use the findings from Razavi et al 2020 on economic sanctions and protection of fundamental human rights and this is basically a review of the ICJ the International Court of Justice ruling in 2018 on the treaty violation the US violation of the 1955 Treaty of Amity but essentially the the this paper finds that that and also the ICJ's ruling recommended that in humanitarian instances that it's essential that the US move towards removing limitations on food medical and aviation equipment to Iran for civilian use and suggests that human rights impact assessments and monitoring sanctions programs on sanctioned state be be introduced the US did not comply with these suggestions but this takes me to the recommendations which mirror the ICJ outcomes and conclusively to actualize the Paris Agreement provisions which is the duty of the international community this paper argues that a mechanism should be developed for countries that have been subjected to or will be subjected to economic sanctions and have as a consequence been denied opportunities to engage freely in economic academic and technological exchange when it comes to the environment so understanding that economic sanctions are often administered in a manner where there's no definitive end in sight it becomes difficult for sanctioned countries to prioritize their environment so this paper argues that the development of a sovereign international mechanism or UN mechanism a financial mechanism that can facilitate essential trade for the environment and provide coping mechanisms for a sanctioned country should be established I guess I I guess I can share if I could yeah I'll stop right there then I can thank you so much sorry over time yeah thank you very much for this fascinating presentation so let us open the floor for questions from the audience that I can pose to the speakers also a reminder for everybody to please keep posting your questions in the zoom a q&a so we can I can ask the relevant speaker to address these questions for you I have a first question that was asked relatively early but that seems relevant to all presentations in a way relatively practical question about electric vehicles and the relative infrastructure for this in in the Gulf so maybe the question is has there been any efforts in the Gulf to move to electric vehicles installing infrastructure to support them so if I could ask you maybe Karim to address this for the Arab Gulf and then Shirin if you could share your knowledge about electric infrastructure in Iran that would be very useful um sure um well that's an interesting question my answer is to what end why would you electrify vehicles if the electricity comes from fossil fuels so there when the group when the grid electrifies that becomes an interesting solution it improves air quality yes that is true um tailpipe emissions go down but emissions and the power plant go up um so I'm not 100% sure that is the solution if the grid is still more than 90% from from fossil fuels but when they when it decarbonizes indeed there have been some efforts Dubai has made some some pushes towards electrifying some of its fleets like taxis and the like obviously public transportation is electrified but the vehicles haven't been and I I won't encourage you at this point thank you very much Shirin what is the state of the electrification of vehicles in Iran um that's a that's a good question I'm not um very well read on uh the state of electrification electrification of cars in Iran but to my understanding I know that um there is strong relations uh with um Japan in Iran and they they have made efforts for introducing electric motorcycles and vehicles um which have been hampered by um the impacts of of sanctions partially and especially in the in the past uh in a couple of years with the difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran there hasn't been significant progress made in this realm but um I know that this is definitely something that the Iranian government is interested in and um one of the limitations of course is uh access to foreign direct investments to and technology to further this but there's a lot of also domestic um research being done on developing um local um resources for this to to progress so and I I know for sure that Iran would very much benefit from um something like this because it suffers strongly in its major cities from um the consequences of um overpopulation and and um pollution as a as a result. Thank you very much, Shireen. Let's move on to the next question from the audience um which was one about um green development in Kuwait and Iraq um compared to Dubai and the UAE so the question is do you see a place for visionary leadership quality education and non or sector development facilitating future development in in Kuwait and Iraq like it has been in Dubai and the UAE and so maybe we could ask Zayna to address this this question since you addressed Kuwait in your talk as well and mentioned that Kuwait was lagging a little bit behind in this respect. Yeah yeah um I mean for me they have to um uh I think it's going to be very difficult for Iraq with the current economic and after-war implication for them so they were going to need a lot of support and really willingness to do that investment um uh Kuwait has been always uh been a question mark why because actually the debate of diversifying the economy of Kuwait has been actually the longest in the Gulf region um the parliament has been discussing it for years but actually no actual step has been done on that so actually the onus is on on the authority to basically really roll that forward um and maybe as well for the people to um ask that this is a way forward to make sure that that economic is viable. Thank you very much Zayna Karim uh what is your perspective on specifically these two countries uh Kuwait and Iraq do you see um do you see a way of simply emulating what other countries in the Gulf have been done or would they have to find find sort of their own maybe specific way of addressing the climate change challenges. Well they have different challenges to start with so they will have to have different responses Iraq has major issues to do with water it doesn't have a desalination infrastructure it has transboundary issues in terms of getting water down from Turkey um it has sea level rise issues that threaten large parts of itself uh Kuwait doesn't have those problems but it has other problems so um I'm not 100% sure what model is being proposed here as the the model that should be mimicked I think the question is not very clear to me um what is the sustainable model in the region that needs to be replicated in Kuwait or Iraq but the general responses yes we need to spoke solutions just like we have differentiated responsibilities for climate change we also need um customized adapted adaptation solutions. Thank you thank you very much uh thank you very much Karim I want to go to uh another question that was specifically asked on on Iran so how can Iran um under the current um sanctions from the US and the west fulfill its economic development objectives and achieve its aims of development within the the frame of international law and sustainable environmental diplomacy so is there actually any space for doing any of that given the given the current situation on the sanctions right that's actually the slide that I rushed through um kind of tripped on my words but it's um it's a great question and um so essentially um the article I was speaking about um Razavi at all 2020 um was uh examining sanctions in the context of human rights um particularly in in uh regards to food and medicine but this can be extended to the environment as well and um so within the um confines of human rights law um sanctions uh sometimes are viewed as uh forms of economic warfare and when a country is at war with another country um the jurisdiction uh the the government that is uh um um occupying a country is um responsible for any sort of um wrongdoings or or anything that happens to the country that's occupied so the author of this uh authors of this paper argue that um they can they created a a theory um that extends this to economic sanctions um and find that based on the severity of sanctions uh the sanctioning country should be accountable for providing um monetary of support and also um mitigate the human rights implications and violations in in the target country and this is also supported by the ICJ ruling which found that that the U.S. should be held accountable and should impose human rights impact assessments to mitigate um the extent of um harm on the sanctioned country so I guess within to answer the question um there are instruments uh that can be manipulated and used within uh human rights law to um protect uh people but this is a an ongoing kind of field of work and um this is what my paper hopes to contribute to in the future. Thank you very much for for answering this question um there is another question from the audience um which focuses a little bit on lifestyle and cultural practices of life so um it is the fact that per capita emissions in the Gulf are relatively high compared to the rest of the world and the question is whether a turn towards green energy will not have to entail very fundamental you know rethinking about uh a consumerist maybe luxury's lifestyle that is sort of has been promoted in the region um Karim and Zayna how do you how do you see this is there a is is is it the case that people will have to give up the the lifestyle that they used to and how would this transition uh be be enabled? Would you go first or Zayna? Go ahead Karim go ahead I'll follow. Sure uh so well I'll take issue with the initial premise here yes the carbon emissions per capita are high but the carbon emissions per dollar of GDP are high and the overall emissions of this really small region is five percent of the global emissions so that's not it's not insignificant I mean that's it's equivalent to one of the largest 10 emitters in the world uh so it's not uh it's not something that we should brush aside as some insignificant Iran is the seventh largest emission in the world so I I can't see why this is such a a small issue that we could be little in any way it is a significant issue yes the historic responsibility was not upon this region overall if you take all accumulative emissions from the beginning of the industrial age yes but the the the current state is different now on the issue of lifestyle there's a limit to how much um lifestyle can change there um yes you could reduce you could reduce consumption but if the infrastructure doesn't allow you to do that if the if the entire system works against you there are certain countries where doing the same things results in different kind of carbon emissions so opening a tap getting water in certain countries will result in much higher emissions between Dubai and Oslo for example they're both using two liters a day for example just for the for argument's sake but the two liters in Dubai result in much more emissions than the two liters in Oslo and on the point I'm trying to make here is there are fundamentals for settled for human settlements and these cannot be easily fixed by asking people to have less showers or having less trips or mocking more yes there all of these things go further but the fundamentals of the location itself put a ceiling on how much carbon emissions can be reduced by or floored and how much it can be reduced by and and and also and also the the infrastructure that is built on top of this location on top of these basic fundamentals also puts puts a further floor in that so that so my point here is yes there's a scope but but this is mostly a policy issue okay thank you very much Karim Zaina what is your view in this I agree on the policy part but I do agree that we need to really shift our behaviour and our lifestyle and our thinking of the economy and economic growth you know that the fundamental problem that we're facing with climate change is that we have been living for many years globally not just basically the gulf with a mentality of growth for the sake of growth and using our resources endlessly without any barrier without any limitation without any concern concern and that mentality globally wise the population has to basically face that and deal with it sadly the gulf is not even close to that conversation right I mean if you see the lifestyle in in many of the gulf in countries especially the rich among them and per se I'm talking about UAE now Saudi Arabia Qatar it's not a healthy lifestyle to continue with because it is just basically built on a set of basically using resources endlessly right because yeah if you continue to rely on the sea to desalinate your water endlessly right you're gonna end up with you know not just the bill of having all your desalination plant running on oil the environmental impact of destroying the the the sea you're basically not changing the way you operate and you're really not thinking of you are part of the environment around you and basically you should change your resources so there is work that need to be done that my fear is that we're so far away from it and the gulf as a conversation and and policies and even basically willingness to change and that's what I'm what I said and I tried to convey in my last call is that we should start planning ahead as opposed to face a reality like we did with covid of having to stop having to change so I hope what my my conveying of shifting the economy diversifying the economy not relying on an entire reliance on resources is actually as well shifting the model of the economy from being basically just resource intense and growth for the take-off growth and rather basically try to live in harmony and peace with nature. Thank you very much Zayna I have a question to all of you and this would then conclude our Q&A and in the interest of time I'd like you to address to make your answer relatively short so out of all of your presentation what comes to the fore is that the challenge seems to be relatively clear and to some extent also the solution seemed to be relatively relatively clear although they need to be adapted to each country context but I was wondering who will who are the drivers the actors that will drive this change in the respective countries and that will have the political clout to overcome veto players in this process stakeholders in the status quo so if we could go address this question from each of your perspectives and yeah let's start maybe with you Shireen your perspective on Iran and then Karim and then Zayna. Thank you for the question I personally think in the case of Iran unfortunately the government is in the Tories for not paying very much attention to the environment and this has consistently been a problem even preceding the the revolution so I believe largely that and there are efforts that people are taking on their own will and trying to be more sustainable and environmentally accountable but I believe strongly that the outcome of the JCPOA will provide if there is a negotiation achieved with the new administrations that will provide a new breath of air for Iran's economy and with that I think it all boils down to economics if you're not you know pressured or strained there's a higher chance that you will be more ethical and sensible with your use of the environment and educating the younger populations this key I just want to add one quick thing about what was previously mentioned I personally think that one of the issues in the Middle East is supply and demand and I think that we need to focus largely in reducing the demand that we have locally so and I think this also relates to answering this question because it will depend largely on consumers and changing that form of thought in the future as Zayna was speaking to so. Thank you very much Shireen Karim about the actors of this change and transformation who will they be? So normally we would think of those actors as central governments local local officials so that would be municipalities and private section and CSOs but the power of the second player is quite diminished around the around the Gulf so perhaps there's perhaps it's more meaningful in Iran but in the GCC countries and Iraq municipalities have very little powers to to create local change and towards sustainable development so I would stick with the three main classic players governments setting policies private sectors hopefully leading innovation as we see occasionally in the UAE and CSOs where you can find them. Thank you very much Zayna where do you see the actors driving this change? Yeah I will follow on what both Shireen and Karim said but for me you know this is a common humanitarian human nation you know population responsibility so for me yes the government has a big responsibility the private sector which in many cases as well in in in that part of the world is very linked to the government have a mess of duty to basically really foresee the change and contribute to it as well as the civil society work but for me as well there is the duty for the for the for the for the global society to contribute for specific countries like Iraq like Yemen they cannot take this forward without the support needed you know rich country like Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates and Qatar has to do their investment and they're basically part of the pay part of the share of the pie of what basically we need to do but you know if we want to be sincere on tackling climate change and tackling the responsibility of the emission and the production and the extraction then we really need to look at the Gulf region as a priority region because this is where 50 percent of our oil is still sitting and we need to keep it there if we really want to tackle climate change and that does come with an economic pay right that that come with a mega bill so those countries need to be supported in moving this forward whether they are actually rich or poor because as as Karim said and it's very clear historically they didn't have that accountability on what we are facing and climate change but they do have currently an accountability they're stepping into it but they really need to do more and everybody need to contribute as well as the global work need to support them in doing this forward that might take. Thank you very much Zayna unfortunately we are out of time so please join me in thanking Karim, Shirin and Zayna for three wonderful very interesting presentations thanks for joining us and a hand over to Sophia who will give you an overview of what's to come. Thank you so much Bedan and Anja let me just thank all of our panelists again and also thank you to you Dr Iber for carrying this fantastic session and keeping time and you know finishing almost on time so I won't take any more time up I just wanted to say you know that each speaker really really absolutely picked up almost where each other left off and I thought that was a really fantastic way to sort of draw in all the three presentations together and just shows you know the nature of the challenges and the opportunities facing the region and these issues across countries which are all interrelated and interconnected so thank you again really loved all of the presentations and if you want any more information from any of the other any of the speakers my contact details and others contact details are on the program so feel free to contact us and we can put you in touch with our panelists and they can give you more information. I'm going to draw this session to a close now and break for lunch for 45 minutes to one hour we'll open up again at 12.45 for people to log back in with the next session starting at two o'clock sorry one o'clock sorry one o'clock thank you very much and for joining for all the attendees for their questions as well and yeah I look forward to seeing some