The King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) is an advisory think tank within global energy economics and sustainability providing services to entities and authorities in the Saudi energy sector. located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Founded on July 10, 2007, by the Saudi Council of Ministers, the center brings together an international group of expert researchers of more than 15 nationalities, with a mandate to advance the understanding of domestic and global energy challenges and opportunities, through objective research that informs quality decision-making to enhance global economic outlook.In 2020 KAPSARC was ranked by the University of Pennsylvania Think Tank and Civil Societies Program as 13th place out of 60th in its list of global top Energy and Resource Policy think tanks and jumped up 14th spots in the MENA Think Tank index, to reach 15th out of 103.
Does fear cause us to “circle the wagons” and favor those in our in-group? Or does fear of the “other” cause us to recognize our common humanity and become more charitable to those we might otherwise consider outsiders? The measurement of this effect is confounded by the fact that some groups respond more strongly to fear than others. We run an online experiment on a nationally representative sample in South Korea in which we induce fear via the autobiographical emotional memory task method and examine the impact on donations to either an in-group charity (the Korean Red Cross) or one that caters to an out-group (the Korea Support Center for Foreign Workers). We find that, while the reported level of fear is negatively correlated with donations to the out-group, the induced fear caused by the experimental intervention is positively correlated with donations to the out-group. We also find that the fear effect depends on political views, media exposure, and social preferences. We confirm our experimental results by looking at how regional attitudes toward out-groups have shifted over time and compare those changes to the average level of reported fear during the COVID-19 pandemic. Places that report the most fear of COVID-19 also have had the greatest increases in prosocial attitudes toward out-groups.
Achieving universal access to clean cooking is a central target of the Sustainable Development Goals, yet progress in sub-Saharan Africa remains limited. Nearly one billion people in the region continue to depend on traditional biomass fuels, with adverse consequences for public health, deforestation, and soil degradation. The burden is particularly acute for women and children, who face disproportionate health risks and time losses from fuel collection. This study assesses the current state of clean cooking fuel access in Ghana and Kenya-two countries with distinct sociocultural and economic contexts but which face shared energy challenges. It then examines the economic, environmental, and social costs of traditional fuel use along with the challenges of adopting cooking with clean fuels, and it then projects future progress of this adoption. Despite rising uptake of liquefied petroleum gas and electricity in urban areas, rural households remain reliant on wood and charcoal. Projections indicate that by 2030, Ghana's clean cooking access will reach only 41%, while Kenya's will probably reach 57%, falling significantly short of universal access under SDG7. The associated costs are substantial, reaching an estimated $18 billion annually in Ghana and $39 billion in Kenya. The analysis emphasizes the need to establish policy frameworks that combine infrastructure investments, targeted subsidies, and awareness campaigns tailored to local culture. It is essential to link access to clean cooking methods to health policies, gender equality, and climate strategies in order to accelerate their adoption and avoid exacerbating existing inequalities
This study designs carbon-pricing policy scenarios to support Saudi Arabia’s twin goals of decarbonization and macro-fiscal development for 2025–2040. We propose three scenarios for a carbon tax: an early start with revenues spent under typical budget patterns; a two-year delayed start combined with short-term solar incentives financed by green bonds; and a similar delay, but with carbon price revenues recycled into continuous, long-term solar-capacity expansion programs. Using a semi-structural macro-sectoral econometric model extended with energy and emissions linkages, we find that if policymakers implement early carbon pricing without long-term renewable energy financing, this achieves emissions reduction but dampens economic growth. By contrast, channeling carbon price revenues into renewable financing brings even moderate economic growth, while deepening decarbonization.
This study quantifies the impact of a warming climate on regional residential electricity demand and the power system costs in Saudi Arabia. Using region-specific models estimated over the 1990-2020 period across four regions (Central, Eastern, Southern, Western), we find that a 1°C increase in average temperature raises electricity consumption for cooling by 12.9%, 10.3%, 8.3%, and 4.8% in the Western, Southern, Central, and Eastern regions, respectively. Under the high-emission SSP5 pathway, cooling-related electricity use by 2060 is projected to exceed the SSP2 baseline by nearly 20 TWh; the SSP1 scenario reduces consumption by about 8 TWh. A power system optimization model shows that the SSP1 pathway yields the lowest long-term system costs, saving $9.41 billion relative to SSP2 over the 2024-2060 period, while SSP5 increases total system costs by $12.57 billion. These results underscore the economic benefits of global climate mitigation for Saudi Arabia's energy system.
