SUSTG.com / Research

Discover stories, topics, and more about Saudi Arebia faster.

Recent stories from sustg

MUST-READS

  • Donors, including Saudi Arabia, raise more than 2 billion euros for Sudan aid a year into war

    "I hope the money raised today is translated into aid that reaches people in need," said Abdullah Al Rabeeah, head of Saudi Arabia's KSRelief. On Friday, Sudan's army-aligned foreign ministry protested that it had not been invited to the conference. "We must remind the organisers that the international guardianship system has been abolished for decades," it said in a statement.

  • Is the EU the North Star for Circular Economy Push in Saudi Arabia?

    The European Union's (EU) circular economy (CE) framework is an exemplar of comprehensive and strategic environmental governance. This framework is meticulously designed to encompass robust legislation, set ambitious sustainability targets, and deploy diverse initiatives across sectors, which can serve as a powerful model for nations like Saudi Arabia aiming to enhance their own circular economy policies.

  • Commentary: GCC-EU ties are improving, but obstacles remain

    Europe has underlined its determination to play a stronger role in regional security by contributing to the deescalation of tensions in the wider Middle East, among other things. An example of this was the participation of 19 EU member states in the recent Aspides naval operation to help safeguard shipping in the Red Sea.

  • The benefits of neutrality: Saudi foreign policy in the wake of the Ukraine war

    Regardless of its voting behaviour at the UN, the Kingdom – which, unlike other Middle East states, was less dependent on wheat imports from the Black Sea region (Al-Saidi, 2023) – settled on the adoption of a neutral position. Only in May 2023 would Minister of Foreign Affairs Faysal bin Farhan officially acknowledge that stance, holding that Saudi Arabia had adopted ‘positive neutrality’ during the war (Al Arabiya, 2023).

  • Grid Bottlenecks on the Way in Europe?

    A new analysis by the energy think tank Ember has found that several countries in Europe could soon face bottlenecks in their national transmission energy grids, as more solar and wind power will be generated than these networks have capacity for. As the following chart shows, Spain, France and Poland are just some of the countries that will have energy grids which undershoot their country’s respective 2030 policy targets for wind and solar capacity. Out of the 26 countries studied by Ember in this comparison, 11 will not have enough capacity for the expected wind and solar build out if the present grid plans are realized.

  • Operation Aspides: The European Union’s Response to the Red Sea Crisis

    On February 19, the European Union launched a new maritime security operation, EU Naval Force Operation Aspides, in response to escalating Houthi attacks on Western warships and merchant vessels in the Red Sea basin and northwestern Indian Ocean. The name Aspides, which means “shields” in Greek, denotes the operation’s underlying defensive nature. The EU naval mission, carried out under its Common Security and Defense Policy, underscores how ensuring maritime security and maintaining the stability of global supply chains are front and center in the EU’s defense and trade strategic calculus.

  • Russia’s friends beg EU to leave frozen assets alone

    Representatives of China, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are privately pushing the EU to continue resisting pressure from the U.S. and U.K. to seize more than €200 billion of Russian state assets it immobilized after February 2022's invasion of Ukraine to help Kyiv's reconstruction efforts, four officials with knowledge of the proceedings told POLITICO. “These countries are very skeptical about the idea,” said one of the officials, granted anonymity because the talks are so sensitive. The concern is, “this would create a precedent” ― in other words, these countries would fear they could be next to lose out.

  • New west-east route keeps Europe hooked on Russian gas

    Western European governments have sought to reduce their energy dependence on Russia since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, but when it comes to gas, they have increasingly substituted the country's pipeline supplies with its liquefied natural gas (LNG). A Reuters analysis of data found more than a tenth of the Russian gas formerly shipped by pipeline to the European Union has been replaced by LNG delivered into EU ports.

  • How Europe’s energy crisis boosted fracking prospects in the Middle East

    Renewed interest in fracking for gas in the MENA region is being driven by two key factors: the accelerating energy transition and the need for new cleaner forms of energy, and Europe’s need to diversify its gas supply following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With respect to the first reason, gas offers oil exporters in the MENA region the prospect of continuing to generate export revenue by producing a fuel that is less carbon-intensive than coal or oil, and still considered a ‘transition fuel’, before lower-carbon energy options are adopted in some policy circles.

  • UAE, Saudi Arabia ranked as leading global entrepreneurial ecosystems

    The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been ranked first and third respectively in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report for 2023-2024. The report, which assesses the entrepreneurial ecosystems of countries worldwide, is highly regarded by international bodies such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and various UN organizations, Saudi Arabia showed significant progress in its entrepreneurial environment, with its National Entrepreneurship Context Index score increasing from 5.0 in 2019 to 6.3 in both 2022 and 2023.