UAE Becoming Environmentally Responsible

Biggest Resource Consumer Turns Around

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called the United Arab Emirates the country with the largest ecological footprint. This means that the UAE per capita uses more resources than anyone else on Earth.

Anyone that has been to the UAE, a country that has more Filipinos than native Arabs, can see why the desert country uses so much resources. In the middle of 50C desert heat, manmade snow is created in a mall. You can’t walk more than five steps in Dubai without being in air-conditioning. All tap water is drinkable in the country, thanks to energy-intensive desalinization of the Arabian Gulf for its fresh water supply.

The UAE, a country famous for its multi-billion dollar show-off construction projects, is finally putting in some money into sustainable development. An agreement was signed Sunday between the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co. (ADFEC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to create the Masdar Institute of Technology in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi is the Emirate where the UAE’s central government lies, as well as the Emirate where most of the country’s oil wealth is sourced. The Masdar Institute of Technology will use some of the country’s oil income to develop a new renewable, more sustainable energy sector.

Abu Dhabi had previously committed US$350 million to a solar power initiative. The desert country has year-round sunshine and most of the land is unusable, arid desert, the perfect setting for expansive solar farms.

Last March, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan committed one-and-half square miles of land for the Masdar Initiative, along with US$100 million for a "clean technology fund".

The UAE is currently the world’s fourth largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait.

The UAE is considered the most forward thinking of the Middle East oil producing countries, investing oil money into development projects designed to carry the country’s economy after the oil runs out. It developed the Jebel Ali Freeport, the world’s third largest re-export zone outside of Rotterdam and Hong Kong. However, billions of dollars have been sunk into ambitious, expensive, and totally frivolous projects such as an artificial island designed to look like palm fronds from space, and the ongoing construction of what will be the world’s tallest building in a city that doesn’t even have a land shortage.