Changing the Energy Profile of the GCC States: A Review
The six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States have an excellent geographical location as a point that link between East and West in addition to the vast wealth resulting from the extraction and export of oil and natural gas. Life has got up in the cities of the region that evolved dramatically. However, this progress accompanied with some drawbacks. The lavish increase in energy consumption caused an increasing in environmental pollution of the area, which became obvious fact affect the human, water, and marine animals. This study focused on a general review of what GCC countries environmentally suffer from, and the practical steps taken by these countries collectively and individually to get rid of those problems. The studies about the region countries have shown its trend towards the use of renewable energies to heal a large part of the environmental damage resulting from years of development and consumption of fossil energy sources. As it turns out from the study, the GCC countries are still lagging behind establishing renewable energies power stations except the UAE that carried out the initiative Masdar City and Oman initiatives in solar energy. All countries in the region are making plans for the future and build and produce renewable energies, which seemed its star rises, especially with the understanding and awareness of decision makers in the region to its importance.