The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has turbocharged its journey to sustainability, soaring to a 41.5 score in the 2024 Circular Carbon Economy Index, up from 37.7 previous year, cementing its position ahead of the global curve in climate action and carbon circularity
The data issued by the Centre on Circular Carbon Economy Index revealed that three GCC countries topped the index at the Middle East and North Africa level. The Circular Carbon Economy Index serves as a comprehensive assessment tool that measures the progress of 125 countries worldwide towards achieving net-zero emissions, through the CCE framework which balances mitigation technologies with enabling tools.
The Circular Carbon Economy Index is comprised of two critical components that reflect the comprehensive progress of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in their climate actions.
The first, the Performance Index, evaluates the extent to which countries apply emission-mitigation technologies, where the GCC showed impressive advancement in 2024, reaching a score of 35.8, up from 29.7 in 2023.
The second, the Enablers Index, measures the readiness and supportive conditions for transitioning to a low-carbon economy, with the GCC improving its score to 47.2 points in 2024, compared to 45.6 points the previous year.
Together, these indices highlight the region’s accelerating efforts to embrace innovative climate technologies and strengthen the foundational policies, investments, and infrastructures needed to achieve a sustainable, carbon-neutral future.
This dual progress underscores the GCC’s commitment not only to adopting cutting-edge emission-reduction solutions but also to creating an enabling environment for a resilient and enduring green economy transition.
The Circular Carbon Economy Index data also showed that GCC countries have made a significant leap in contributing to the establishment of global renewable energy plants. The share of the GCC’s installed design capacity for renewable energy plants out of the total global installed design capacity rose to 0.43 percent in 2024, compared to just 0.03 percent in 2015.
The Supreme Council of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) affirms its commitment to adopting the key pillars of the energy transition, including energy security, economic development, and climate change, through sustainable investments in hydrocarbon resources. Member states are following the four pillars of the Circular Carbon Economy (CCE) approach, which are reducing, reusing, recycling, and removing emissions.
