Palgrave McMillan

The threat of climate change and the need for energy security pose serious challenges for policymakers. Part of the strategy to tackle these issues rests on multilateral initiatives increasing the momentum of global environmental governance efforts. Nevertheless, these problems create a further dilemma for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. On the one hand, the impact of climate change will heavily affect these countries and thus requires their active participation in mitigation efforts.

This chapter focuses upon labour migration to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, since the massive incomes to these countries, particularly from the oil price increase in the 1970s, resulted in one of the great migration stories of the twentieth century. Still significant, today labour migration to the GCC accounts for over 10 per cent of all migrants globally.