This study fills a gap in the literature on international carbon markets by identifying lessons learned from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects developed in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries. The study addresses two objectives: it documents the GCC region’s experience with the CDM and related project development, and it identifies related lessons that can help the region re-engage with carbon markets in the Paris Agreement era. The study draws from the literature on the CDM, publicly available CDM project data, and regional stakeholder accounts. The latter, which comprise 17 semi-structured interviews with regional and international carbon market stakeholders, constitute the major empirical component and novel contribution of the study.
The article starts with a brief review of global and regional CDM literature, focused on distilling lessons learned from past experiences.
