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Although all the countries of West Asia and North Africa have signed and ratified the UNFCCC, Module
only half of them have completed their first Initial National Communication on Climate Change. The
issues related to climate change are not regularly reported by the local media due to lack of data 3

and support by decision-makers. Recently these issues became not only the concern of scientific
institutions, but also moved into the concern of politicians and decision-makers. In this case "issue
linkage" appears to have been a critical factor in getting climate change onto the agenda of the public
and policy makers.

The evidence of high level of political attention to the issues of global climate change in OPEC Abu Dhabi, UAE
nations and particularly in the Arab States of the Gulf Cooperation Council was highlighted when
the leaders of these nations, in their Third Summit meeting in Riyadh decided to allocate financial
resources to conduct research and to take appropriate measures and actions regarding global
warming impacts. Details of the declaration were:

BOX 1 Research on climate change

OPEC nations pledge financial resources:

The Third OPEC Summit, in Riyadh, gave conspicuous attention to the issue of the
environment and what practically needs be done to combat climate change. Much
discussion revolved around renewable energy and the impacts of energy policies on
developing countries. OPEC nations took a step further to commit financing to studies
expected to go some way toward reversing current inclement trends in global warming.
At the Summit, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia took the lead in announcing a US$300 million
endowment toward such research. Saudi Arabia was followed by three other Gulf States:
Kuwait; Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, each of which pledged US$150 million,
bringing the total commitment to US$750 million. Other OPEC nations are likely to
follow. According to various sources, the funds would support cleaner and more efficient
petroleum technologies to help protect the local, regional and global environment. The
funding will also help enhance the development of technologies such as Carbon Capture

and Storage (CCS). Furthermore, the endowment is expected to help promote the
transfer of environmentally-friendly technologies from advanced countries to OPEC- and
other developing countries, (OFID NL 2007, .XIII-no.3).

IEA Training Manual Workshop for the National Reporting Toolkit (NRT) 15