Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth funds energy infrastructure transformation with General Electric at the helm. In 2005, a light bulb went off for GE, which pledged to spend $1.5 billion on alternative technology by 2010. Their Ecomagination department eclipsed that goal in 2009 and has recently committed a further $10billion to the cause. Masdar City in […]
Abu Dhabi City Municipality teaches its employees how to reduce consumption on Paper-Less Day. [image via: hunflickr] Generally known worldwide as bureaucratic, red tape repositories for paper forms, municipalities do not have the most eco-friendly reputation when it comes to paper consumption. (In fact, some environmentalists may claim that all those paper forms are wasteful […]
The United Arab Emirates’s Shams 1 project will incorporate hundreds of parabolic trough collectors. (Image via Solar Thermal Magazine) Abu Dhabi’s Masdar clean energy company has awarded a $600 million contract to a European consortium – the Spanish solar company Abengoa and the French oil and gas group Total – to build what it is billing […]
Get your green drinks on in Abu Dhabi tonight with the Eco-Chicks and other eco folks. If you happen to be passing through the One to One Hotel in Abu Dhabi tomorrow night around 6:30pm, you may stumble across an Abu Dhabi Eco-Chick organized Green Drinks event. Green Drinks is a loosely organized (yet widely […]
Does The First Arabian Construction Week Signal a Greener Middle Eastern Building Policy? [image via flickr] We have brought disturbing news from Dubai this week: a smuggled baby crocodile died and hyenas and baboons were confiscated from a private home. So it gives us pleasure to be able to provide our readers with a tidbit of […]
How Many Discs Will Save Abu Dhabi’s Coral Reefs? We have a long history of worrying about the Middle East’s coral reefs. These “rainforests of the sea” – so named because of their extraordinary biodiversity – are at risk of melting if CO2 levels continue to rise. They also face relentless jeopardy from development projects […]
Can environmental awareness campaigns sponsored by major corporate polluters still get the right message across? [image via: alyssakai] Eighty-eight students from 20 different governmental and private schools in Abu Dhabi were honored as winners of the country’s ninth Annual Environmental Competition last week. The competition, which was organized by the Abu Dhabi Education Council and […]
Bring in the mycorrhiza fungi to help crops grow in the desert, suggests new study for the Middle East. Image via DGSgardening Oil rich Persian Gulf states do not have enough arable land suitable for growing food and animal fodder crops; but they at least have the money available to find ways to improve the […]
One of the hyenas confiscated from a home in Abu Dhabi. Fifteen baboon monkeys and two striped hyenas were rescued by environmental officials from a private home in Abu Dhabi this week. The animals, all listed as endangered species by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), were being held illegally in a […]
The Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (ADMA-OPCO), an offshore division of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), aspires to become the first in the Gulf region to end the “flaring” of natural gas, the UAE-based daily The National reported this week. The World Bank describes gas flaring as “the process of burning-off associated gas from […]
Built on the profits of oil, should Masdar hold the mantle of energy leadership for the world? Yosef asks. According to the Masdar City website, the undertaking is intended to be Abu Dhabi’s “multi-faceted response to the challenges facing a sustainable future.” The city, intended to house 50,000 residents in a kind of technosphere designed […]
Not in the Pacific, but near Abu Dhabi: Bu Tinah island is small paradise for birds and marine life Increasing salinity and higher water temperatures may be causing problems for wildlife in many parts of the Persian Gulf. But in one location at least on Abu Dhabi’s Bu Tinah islands, located 130 km west of the […]
Solar field at Kuraymat, Egypt is now fully assembled. Image via changents.com Ra, the sun god of the ancient Egyptians, would be proud: Egypt’s first large-scale solar thermal facility is nearing completion. A parabolic trough solar field, incorporating nearly 2,000 collector units and covering 130,000 square meters, has been installed at the Kuraymat project site, […]
The scenic countryside in Hail, Saudi Arabia to become part of the largest eco-park in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is probably not on your list of dream vacation spots – especially if you’re a woman traveller, or want to work on your tan, or get back to nature. However, seeking to boost its tourist […]
Arab solar energy company gets awarded for its sustainable vision in Beirut, Lebanon. They sealed a $15 million round of financing this year; now Abu Dhabi’s solar developer Enviromena Power Systems (“Enviromena”) won the “Sustainable Development of the Environment Award” at the Takreem Arab Achievement Awards held in Beirut last month. Hosted by Al Jazeera’s […]