The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has said it wishes to transition toward a less carbon-intensive energy system, both as part of its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and as one of a number of investments in ‘green’ research and development, technology and power generation. However, given the complexity of the UAE political system, which requires consensus among seven relatively sovereign and independent emirates, as well as commercial and financial interests, it is not immediately clear which policy instruments that might drive the UAE energy transition will prove acceptable and politically plausible. Here, we apply the KAPSARC Toolkit for Behavioral Analysis (KTAB) platform, a model of collective decision-making processes (CDMPs), to assess the political will to agree to and to implement an array of different policy alternatives within the current UAE context.

Program Director Dr. Brian Efird is the Program Director for Policy and Decision Science and Acting Program Director for Climate and Environment.… Dr. Brian Efird is the Program Director for Policy and Decision Science and Acting Program Director for Climate and Environment. He manages a multidisciplinary, multi-national team of researchers who work on quantitative models of collective decision-making processes (CDMP), geospatial information system applications for energy economics and energy policy, demography and energy, and energy policy studies of countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Dr. Efird is editor-in-chief of the Springer Scientific journal, Energy Transitions. He was previously a senior research fellow at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.; a consultant on defense and international security matters in Washington; and a consultant applying quantitative models to support corporate, investment banking, and legal negotiations in New York.
Expertise
- Behavioral Modeling
- Geopolitics
- Defense and National Security Studies
- Human Geography
- Strategic Communication
Publications See all Brian Efird’s publications
Renewables and the Future of Geopolitics: Revisiting Main Concepts of International Relations from the Lens of Renewables
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has said it wishes to transition toward a less carbon-intensive…
14th December 2020
Can Japanese Nuclear Power Be Restarted Sooner? A Simulation of Alternative Scenarios
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has said it wishes to transition toward a less carbon-intensive…
27th October 2019