Our Work in MENA
Catalyzing climate leadership in the Middle East and North Africa
CATF seeks to build a new vision for energy and climate in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), with a globally conscious, region-centric approach that asks hard questions and confronts the realities of our global economy and energy system.
Our approach
We are working in the Middle East and North Africa to advance climate solutions and innovative business models, embed them into regional economies, and cultivate climate leadership.
The MENA region has a clear opportunity to position itself for long-term leadership in a decarbonizing world.
Home to global energy suppliers who hold energy resources, technical know-how, and financial power, the MENA region has a clear opportunity to play a leadership role in driving regional and global decarbonization – and climate and clean energy advocates like CATF have a clear opportunity to cultivate and leverage that leadership.
Diversity and vulnerability
The MENA region’s diversity emphasizes the need for a diverse set of strategies to match, supporting the region’s various development efforts while ensuring it can build new collaborative frameworks to mitigate a range of climate change risks.
The region also faces widespread inequality and significant vulnerability to the growing impacts of climate change, particularly in relation to its water supplies and food production systems.
Our efforts
The MENA region can lead the world in innovation and the deployment of carbon-free technologies and innovative business models.
CATF’s work in the Middle East and North Africa seeks to position the region and its key energy suppliers for leadership in a decarbonizing world, encouraging clean energy innovation and investment to advance technologies like carbon capture and storage, clean hydrogen, nuclear energy, superhot rock geothermal, and methane mitigation while establishing the regulatory and policy frameworks needed to advance decarbonization in the region and position it as a global hub for clean manufacturing.
How we work in MENA
Our Approach
CATF’s Middle East and North Africa team engages with key stakeholders to:
- Create a shared regional climate vision to adopt decarbonized technologies at scale, and develop country visions that tie together into a regional diversification strategy
- Establish credible and realistic pathways for eliminating emissions from existing fossil fuel flows from the region and reduce methane emissions
- Build connections between supply and demand centers and promote a robust global dialogue on key learnings
Key Priorities
- Raise the profile of the key policies, business models, and technologies needed to enable Middle Eastern and North African nations to decarbonize
- Advance projects that support 2030 climate targets in MENA countries
- Educate key decision-makers on the policies and technologies needed to transition to a low-carbon economy through engagement, analysis, and advocacy
- Create a shared regional climate vision across the region
- Establish a blueprint for national oil and gas companies’ role in a zero-carbon world
- Reduce methane emissions by 30% or more by 2030 in key MENA countries
Scope of Work
CATF is actively engaged in the region, working to advance Middle Eastern and North African climate and clean energy leadership by:
- Conducting and socializing economic modeling, business-model, technical and policy research to identify opportunities for leadership
- Strategically engaging the region’s leaders to seize opportunities and leverage them to advance global decarbonization
- Establishing and socializing credible and realistic pathways for eliminating carbon dioxide and methane emissions from existing energy flows from the region
- Creating a shared regional climate vision to catalyze and adopt decarbonized technologies at scale.
- Establishing the regulatory and policy framework the region needs to position itself as a global leader in low-emissions manufacturing
- Encouraging the region’s financial actors to diversify their climate funding in the developing world into a wide range of critical climate technologies
Related resources
Meet our experts
Media Inquiries
For all press and media inquiries related to our work in the Middle East and North Africa, please contact Natalie Volk.
