There is little room for grandiose ambitions at COP27. Instead, the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, hosted this week by the African regional group in Egypt and dubbed the “African COP”, aims to meet COP26 commitments with practical solutions. In fact, the COP presidency’s website named it the “Climate Implementation Summit.” But what was always a colossal task of landing practical solutions has been made more difficult by the economic, geopolitical, and energy challenges of 2022 such as the weakened international ties following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recent OPEC+ announcements. Among the practical solutions that are likely to be advanced, are those by wealthy oil and gas exporting economies in the Gulf, especially de facto leader Saudi Arabia, that centre around fossil fuels. COP27 may well be remembered as the conference that saw fossil fuels strongly shoulder their way back to the negotiating table. Prior to COP26, the reliance of Gulf states on oil and gas drove their resistance to the energy transition, which in turn won them the reputation of being climate obstructionists. Yet in an unexpected and unprecedented policy shift, these states joined pro-climate endeavours in 2021. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Pledges by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain by 2060 followed. These states, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have positioned themselves as leaders in providing clean energy globally. Not only do they have expertise in oil and gas, they also have a potential advantage in renewable energy, having some of the best solar and wind resources and, therefore, some of the cheapest renewable energy globally. Some have welcomed these announcements as major advancements of the climate agenda, especially as the Middle East is warming at twice the global average. Others viewed them as greenwashing. After all, Gulf economies are over-dependent on oil and gas exports, which contribute between 69-92 percent and 60-91 percent of their exports and government revenue, respectively. They are also among the world’s highest per capita carbon emitters and have been slow to adopt renewable energy. Renewable sources generate around 1 percent of electricity in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, except in the UAE where the share is 12 percent – compared with 20 percent in energy-poor Egypt, 26 percent in Jordan, and 37 percent in Morocco. But the reality is more complex than that. A key feature of these states’ net-zero emissions targets is their continued production and exploitation of oil and gas, but with a twist: it is coupled with decarbonisation technology. This feature is explicit in the position of Saudi Arabia, the region’s largest fossil fuel exporter and a G20 economy and leader of the bloc of Arab States. It is also a leader in the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) Group and the Group of 77 & China, all of which Egypt is a member. To meet its net-zero targets by 2060, Saudi Arabia launched the Saudi Green Initiative and Middle East Green Initiative to plant 10 billion and 40 billion trees in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, respectively. This announcement followed it joining the Net-Zero Producers Forum (along with Qatar, Norway and the US) in 2021. These initiatives support the ‘circular carbon economy’ framework, which was endorsed by the 2020 Saudi-presided G20 in Riyadh as the cornerstone of the country’s solution for decarbonisation, carbon reduction, and recycling. The framework encompasses the production of fossil fuels as well as new energy sources, most notably clean (blue or green) hydrogen, and heavy industries (hard-to-abate sectors). The framework intends to decarbonise all of these industries using carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology. At COP27, we can expect to see Saudi Arabia and other wealthy oil and gas exporters of the Gulf region position themselves as climate leaders. Saudi Arabia will hold the Middle East Green Initiative Summit and the Saudi Green Initiative Forum in Egypt on the sidelines of COP27, and will invest US$30 million in Egypt. Saudi Arabia will showcase the Regional Voluntary Carbon Market (recently established by the Saudi Public Investment Fund), which auctioned the largest carbon credits to date (1.4 million tonnes) during the 6th edition of the Future Investment Initiative Summit in Riyadh (also dubbed “Davos in the Desert”) in October 2022. The Saudi message will focus on a central point: that fossil fuels have a critical position in the global energy market along with other energy sources, but that it is through CCUS technology and the circular carbon economy framework that future energy paths can be pro-climate.