The Impact of Climate Change on Power Dynamics between the GCC and the Horn of Africa (1990- 2024)

The study explores the relationship between climate change and power relations between the GCC states and the Horn of Africa from 1990 to 2024. Although there are seven sovereign states in the GCC, they enjoy having earned their historic powers in the region through their enormous hydrocarbon reserves and economic influences. In contrast, the Horn of Africa has long been seen as a region of political instability, poverty, and environmental vulnerabilities that have been significantly inflicted with issues relating to climate change. How climate change worsened the already existing tensions and conflicts in the Horn of Africa, how competition over the scarce resources and economic differences between the two regions has become, and how the affected GCC states respond to the climate-induced phenomena of the region are some of the aspects that this research explores. It embeds itself in a theoretical frame that brings dependency theory, resource curse theory, climate security theory, and complex systems theory into the research design, looking for the more profound implications that such investigations have for intra-regional power dynamics. This study conducts discourse analyses of official speeches, policy documents, and media narrations to show how climate change has been discursively constructed and how those constructions influence power relations. On the other hand, it states that these constructions have implications on the relationship between different climates with geopolitics and the economy. A study on the complex links between climate change, geopolitics, and economy has been carried out and calls for green research in new perspectives.