The Middle East’s Gulf region is endowed with one of the world’s largest reserves of hydrocarbons and it is also an area with significant potential for development of solar energy projects. For a very long time, the region has been looked at as a main export source of oil and gas supplies to the rest of the world. However, as we entered the 21st century, the energy balance of most of the Gulf countries started to come under a lot of pressure as a result of rapid economic and population growth rates, including large energy-intensive industrialization programs. Today, several Gulf countries are facing increasing energy supply deficits, and some have even started importing gas from outside the Gulf region. Most of these are also seriously considering alternative sources of energy, including renewables and nuclear, to address the alarming increase in energy use in the region (projected to be the fastest in the world after Asia). The Gulf being one of the regions with the highest per-capita energy intensity, efforts are also focused on demand-side management (DSM) options. Unfortunately, the heavy energy price subsidies that feature in all the Gulf economies remain a major barrier to any serious DSM actions. Intra-Gulf energy exchanges through regional or sub-regional energy (electricity and gas) grids are also considered, and a GCC power grid is already operational, but it is unclear yet how these schemes would operate and/or if there are enough tangible incentives to develop them. This workshop will review and discuss all the above-mentioned issues and highlight the challenges ahead for this region within the context of mounting political and economic turbulences in the Middle East region and the rest of the world. It will also look at the climate change implications of such challenges and how they will be addressed as some of the Gulf countries aspire to play a more important role in the transition to a cleaner energy world.