Rihla Initiative Panel Series

Climate Finance and Green Transitions in a Turbulent World

The global green transition is unfolding in a far more turbulent political and economic environment than many climate finance and energy transition agendas had anticipated. War, geopolitical rivalry, supply chain disruption, inflationary pressures, debt distress, and growing competition over strategic technologies are reshaping how states approach decarbonisation, industrial policy, and development.

For countries across North Africa and the wider Global South, the question is no longer only how to mobilise climate finance, but what kind of finance is being mobilised, by whom, and toward what developmental outcomes. Green investment can support industrial upgrading, job creation, technological learning, and greater resilience. But it can also reproduce older patterns of external dependency, extractive integration, and externally driven transition agendas if financing models remain disconnected from domestic capabilities, local value creation, and long-term development strategies.

This public joint session, co-organised by the Policy Network for Transitions and the Rihla Initiative for Green Economic Growth, will examine how climate finance and green transition strategies are being reshaped by a changing international environment. It will focus in particular on the growing role of Gulf capital in green infrastructure, industrial development, renewable energy, food systems, and urban transformation across the Global South. It will also explore how Chinese involvement in green technologies, manufacturing, infrastructure, and supply chains is changing the political economy of transitions.

The recent war on Iran and in the Gulf has further exposed the fragility of the systems on which green transitions depend. Energy security, maritime routes, food imports, fertiliser supply chains, aviation networks, project finance, and investor confidence have all become part of the same transition landscape. These disruptions have reinforced the need to think about climate finance not only as a decarbonisation tool, but also as a question of resilience, regional interdependence, and economic security.

This session is part of the Rihla Initiative Panel Series as part of a broader effort to understand how Gulf climate finance can support green economic growth across the Global South in ways that are more strategic, developmental, and mutually beneficial. The session will take a forward-looking perspective on the future of green industrialisation in a turbulent world. It will ask how Global South countries can navigate competing external partnerships, protect policy space, and turn climate finance into a vehicle for economic transformation.

Register