Dawud Al Ansari of Oman was one of the forum’s speakers. He is the Founder and President of the Shaheen Institute for Strategy and Development, based in Muscat. The think tank focuses primarily on economic, geopolitical, and strategic foresight issues in the Gulf region. Al Ansari’s own research covers energy and climate, political economy, hydrogen, green industrialization, and Gulf development.

In an interview, Al Ansari said that current developments in the Strait of Hormuz and the wider region are unlikely to be limited to short-term impacts on energy markets or security. Instead, they could further reshape the geopolitical environment of the Gulf states and influence the region’s future economic direction.

He noted that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries play a significant role in the broader regional economy, including through labor flows and remittances, as well as future reconstruction investment in other countries. As a result, changes in the regional situation could affect not only the Gulf states themselves but also generate wider economic ripple effects across the region.

At the same time, he said that Gulf states have been seeking in recent years to broaden their economic bases and reduce dependence on traditional oil and gas industries, while the new geopolitical environment could prompt them to reassess their industrial policies.

“We may see changes in industrial policy across the Gulf, and we may also see these countries rethink which sectors they should prioritize in the future.”

Hydrogen Ambitions Confront Market Realities

Al Ansari spoke in particular about the green hydrogen industry, in which Gulf states have invested heavily in recent years.

He noted that several Gulf countries, including Oman and Saudi Arabia, have viewed hydrogen in recent years as an important component of both the energy transition and future export industries. However, an increasingly practical question has emerged: Who will buy this green hydrogen?

Under earlier plans, much of the green hydrogen produced in the Gulf was intended for international markets such as Europe and Japan. Al Ansari said, however, that actual market demand and long-term offtake agreements have so far fallen short of earlier expectations.

This also reveals a structural challenge faced by many Global South countries seeking to develop green industries: producers bear substantial investment and industrial risks, while demand, technical standards, and market rules are often determined by other countries.

Al Ansari further noted that, purely from the standpoint of energy costs, green hydrogen still faces a significant price gap if it is to directly replace natural gas.

However, this does not mean that green industries in the Gulf lack room for development.

From “Green Hydrogen” to “Green Steel and Green Cement”

Compared with using hydrogen directly for power generation, Al Ansari argued that downstream green industrial products such as green steel and green cement may offer greater practical commercial viability.

He gave the example of a large construction project replacing conventional steel with green steel. Although green steel itself is more expensive, once that additional cost is calculated within the overall construction budget, the total project cost may rise by only about 3% to 5%.

This creates a new point of intervention for government industrial policy.

Governments do not necessarily need to directly subsidize the entire green industry. Instead, they could act as a “buyer of last resort”: if European or other international buyers are temporarily unwilling to purchase these green products, governments could commit to using them in domestic infrastructure and major construction projects.

This mechanism could provide producers with a minimum level of market security, making projects such as green steel and green cement more “bankable” and reducing the risks companies face amid uncertainty in international markets.

Saudi Green Industries Deepen Cooperation with Asia

When discussing geopolitics and industrial cooperation, Al Ansari also highlighted Saudi Arabia.

He said that some of Saudi Arabia’s major joint ventures in renewable energy, battery storage, and solar manufacturing are increasingly being developed in cooperation with East Asian companies.

In his view, outside highly sensitive sectors such as defense and artificial intelligence, industrial cooperation between Gulf states and Asian capital and companies is expanding rapidly.

Therefore, although international media often focus on the security relationship between the Gulf states and the United States, a more diversified economic and geopolitical pattern is emerging when viewed from the perspective of industrial investment.

“Beneath the headlines and security issues, we are in fact seeing a clear process of geopolitical diversification.”

Green Electricity May Become the Gulf’s Shared “Infrastructure for the Future”

Discussing other Gulf countries, Al Ansari said that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia remain the regional leaders in the energy transition, while other GCC countries have moved at different speeds due to differences in economic scale, grid size, and industrial structure.

However, he believes that a growing consensus is emerging across the Gulf:

Even if a country is not yet certain whether its future lies in hydrogen, green steel, battery manufacturing, or other high-value industries, expanding electrification and increasing the supply of green electricity are themselves forms of infrastructure investment that prepare the economy for future industrial development.

As a result, Gulf countries may take a more systematic approach in the coming years to expanding renewable energy, power grids, and industrial electrification.

Geopolitics Is Redefining the Gulf’s “Green Transition”

A central question at the forum was whether regional conflicts will alter the path by which Gulf states seek to reduce dependence on oil and gas and advance green industrialization. According to Climate Week NYC’s official event description, the forum examined war, public finance, industrial policy, and regional power relations, while exploring how green industrial strategies can remain resilient amid regional conflict and geopolitical uncertainty.

Event materials from the Carboun Institute show that the forum also launched a new research initiative focusing on the Iran war, economic diversification, and green industrialization in the Middle East and North Africa, examining whether current regional developments will accelerate energy and industrial transformation or reinforce existing fossil-fuel-based economic structures.

Al Ansari’s perspective offers another way of understanding the issue: for Gulf states, the green transition is no longer simply a matter of climate policy.

Energy security, industrial competitiveness, national strategy, Asian investment, and international market demand are together shaping the next phase of green industrial development in the Gulf.