(Snapshot of the WWF coral map of Qatar and UAE coral reefs). With worrying reports of coral death globally, with global warming to blame, it’s heartening to hear that Arab nations, who are more known for causing global warming, are now working to protect coral reefs. Mapping the reefs to know where to install underwater […]
Last month, I had the unexpected pleasure of visiting Abu Dhabi and Dubai, two of the seven tiny kingdoms that together make up the United Arab Emirates. I was there to cover the World Future Energy Summit, an international conference on renewable energy technologies. This was my first visit to the Emirates, which have a […]
Taking God-Knows-How-Much of the world’s non-renewable energy sources to build, developers of the world’s first zero carbon city, Masdar City, proclaim that the historic groundbreaking in Abu Dhabi will take place this month. (In advance, Daniel’s posted on Abu Dhabi’s Podcar People Mover). While I think the concept is definitely thought provoking — as the […]
Masdar’s PRT pod cars. The playground of the rich, Abu Dhabi, is not just a place for playing kick-the-golden-can. Instead of simply finding ways to spend oil-money on futuristic gadgets and grandiose monuments, there is a lot of interest providing proving grounds for sustainable solutions and new urban paradigms. Personal Rapid Transit: Our very own […]
Academics from Arizona State University are hard at work promoting sustainability and regional cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a politically stable and very prosperous Gulf country. A delegation from Arizona traveled to the United Arab Emirates this past January for a series of meetings to follow-up on last summer’s visit to their university […]
As African nations sell and lease its land, and birthright, to the world’s super-powers, and arguably “dangerous” countries like Saudi Arabia who support Islamic fundamentalism, we are seeing a brand new kind of neo-colonial land-grab, and it scares me. I’d reported on Galten’s Jatropha seeds for biofuel here, and also on the Israeli conglomerate Ormat, […]
A Bangladesh developer in the alternative energy field won the coveted Zayed Future Energy Prize at a recent competition held in the United Arab Emirates State of Abu Dhabi. Dipal Barua’s non-profit company Grameen Shakti was founded in 1996 to provide alternative energy solutions to one of the world’s poorest nations, where most of the […]
Jordan’s Millenium Energy Industries (MEI) has announced a project to provide 1.3 million liters a day of hot water for a new development in the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi’s Modern Residential City is to house 25,000 people in 48 buildings, all of which will receive their hot water from the planned project. The project […]
Just weeks into 2009, at least three Middle Eastern governments have made commitments to increase the green-ness of their energy supplies. Last week, Cairo has committed that renewables will supply 20 percent of Egypt‘s electricity needs by 2020, Israel says solar power will provide 10 % and Abu Dhabi says 7% of its total power […]
We’ve oohed and awed over the green building projects in Dubai: A recent survey has consigned that old saying ‘Location is everything,’ to the scrapheap when it comes to property investors looking to flash their cash in the Middle East. Instead, eco is where it’s at, according to a new United Arab Emirates report. A […]