Across the Middle East and North Africa, large investments are being made in green hydrogen, renewable energy, water infrastructure and sustainability. Most of these efforts are discussed in the context of climate change, decarbonization and economic diversification. That framing is important, but it may not capture their full value.

If these systems are designed well, they can do more than produce clean energy or reduce emissions. They can help create healthier societies and greater long-term stability.

Today, health is usually treated as a medical issue. We think of hospitals, drugs and treatments. From a systems and economic perspective, this approach is becoming increasingly expensive and limited. Health does not begin in hospitals. It begins much earlier, in the conditions people live in every day.

Clean water, healthy soil, reliable energy, nutritious food and safe environments shape human health long before anyone sees a doctor. When these foundations are weak, chronic illness increases, healthcare costs rise and societies become more fragile. Medical systems then try to manage the consequences, often treating symptoms rather than underlying causes.

This challenge exists everywhere, but it is especially visible in regions facing water scarcity, climate stress, rapid urban growth and demographic change, including the Levant, the Gulf states and the wider MENA region.

From a health-economics perspective, many modern healthcare systems function as repair systems. They step in late, once disease has already developed, and continue treatment over long periods of time. 

As a result, healthcare spending grows faster than the economy, chronic disease consumes a growing share of public budgets, and long-term affordability becomes a serious concern.

For many countries, copying high-cost Western healthcare models is neither realistic nor necessary. The more important question is how societies can reduce the need for medical intervention in the first place.

This is where green energy, water and food systems become relevant in a different way. When renewable energy and green hydrogen are developed together with clean water supply, sustainable agriculture and resilient food systems, they form the real infrastructure of prevention. Clean energy supports water security. Clean water supports fertile soil and healthy food. Good food supports stable human health.

Seen this way, health is not something that constantly needs to be repaired. It emerges naturally when systems are designed properly.

This way of thinking is not new in the Middle East. The Levant and surrounding regions were once centers of advanced medical and scientific knowledge. Thinkers such as Hippocrates, and later scholars including Ibn Sina, ar-Razi and al-Kindi, understood health as a balance between the human body, the environment and daily life. Their focus was on water quality, nutrition, lifestyle and the relationship between people and their surroundings.

In modern terms, this was forward-looking knowledge. Not mystical, but practical. It recognized that the way systems are designed determines long-term outcomes.

What is new today is our ability to explain this older systems wisdom using modern science, including biochemistry, electrochemistry and economics, and to apply it to today’s policy and investment decisions.

If green hydrogen and renewable energy projects are seen only as climate measures, their potential remains limited. When they are connected to water, food and health systems, they become foundations of societal resilience. This has clear economic benefits: lower healthcare costs over time, fewer chronic diseases, better returns on sustainability investments and greater social stability.

The next phase of the energy transition is therefore not only about reducing emissions. It is about creating the conditions in which healthy societies can emerge.

Medical care will always be important, but it cannot carry the system alone. Health grows upstream, in water, energy, food and living conditions. When these systems work, health follows naturally, at lower cost and with greater stability.

This idea is old. But in a time of rising costs and increasing pressure on societies, it may be more relevant than ever.

::Bonn Climate Project

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Heinz J. Sturm is a system architect and analyst working at the intersection of energy, water, health, and societal resilience. He is the initiator of the Bonn Climate Project, where he develops integrated system frameworks linking climate action with public health and long-term stability. Sturm is also the developer of Ars Medica Nova, a conceptual platform exploring new models of preventive health that draw on systems thinking, biology, and infrastructure design. His work focuses on translating complex system architectures into practical narratives for policymakers, researchers, and civil society.

The post From Green Energy to Healthy Societies: Why old systems thinking is becoming relevant again appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Mediterranean diet consists of on vegetables and legumes, cereals, olive oil,  and moderate consumption of fish, meat, and red wine. The diet is largely plant-based, requiring fewer natural resources than animal production, so it’s relatively light on environmental impact. In 2010, UNESCO recognized it as Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

But the report warns that tourism, urbanization, and a loss of traditional knowledge are contributing to a rapid diminishing of genetic diversity in crops and animal breeds across the Mediterranean, altering menus for the worse. Add a regional uptick in consumed processed “convenience” food,  meat and dairy products, and hear the death knell for this way of eating long linked to healthy living. Food products are increasingly sourced from outside the region, monoculture production is replacing local farms (producing a variety of crops). The study estimates that just 10 percent of traditional local crop varieties are still being cultivated across the region, the rest replaced by a limited number of improved non-native crops. How do you spell Big Food?

Southern Mediterranean countries continue to struggle with under-nutrition and “stunting” – low height for age – among children under five years of age, but other countries across the region increasingly struggle with obesity and overweight and the region is seeing a rise in chronic diet-based diseases that lead to disability and death. Paradoxically, in several MENA countries malnutrition and obesity coexist as equally weighted health problems.

So what can be done?

On an personal level, vote with your fork.  Buy seasonal, local, and ideally organic food products.

On a political level, FAO and CIHEAM are working to increase international understanding of how to make Mediterranean diets more sustainable. The collaboration aims to develop local case studies on ways to increase production sustainably, support local producers and promote adherence to traditional diet patterns.

Policy makers, researchers and the food industry need to increase collaboration to better understand food systems and trends, the report says. More attention needs to be paid to increasing food consumption and production in ways that protect local resources and knowledge. Awareness campaigns could drive up consumer demand for traditional Mediterranean products, with an eye on better integrating current food trends and consumer habits with the use of local products across the region.

The report also calls for a three-year pilot project in CIHEAM countries – 13 nations cooperating in agriculture, food, fisheries and rural territories in the Mediterranean – to be developed together with FAO, along with specific guidelines for improving regional diets.

“The Mediterranean diet is nutritious, integrated in local cultures, environmentally sustainable and it supports local economies,” said Alexandre Meybeck, Coordinator of FAO’s Sustainable Food Systems Program, said in a statement on the FAO website. “This is why it’s essential that we continue to promote and support it.”

Image of Mediterranean foodstuffs from Shutterstock

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Green walls and rooftop gardens are great, but keeping them healthy in the Middle East and North Africa can be challenging. Green Studios, whose work in Lebanon we’ve featured once before, has an answer with their patented technology that ensures plants can flourish despite the extraordinary heat in our region.

“We wanted to develop something that is applicable to super-hot [climates],” says Jamil Corbani, cofounder and CEO of Green Studios.” And in order to do this, they beefed up standard hydroponic growing techniques (that require no soil, and just a mineral nutrient solution to feed the greens) with smart technology that monitors plant health.

Related: flux makes it easy for businesses to connect to new customers through their smart garden brain

Their green walls are comprised of several layers of ‘skin’, the core of which comprises the irrigation network. Each skin has its own function, that – equipped with a series of sensors and nano-sensors – monitor and respond to the surrounding environment. Data collected by the sensors will be sent to an electrical board, and if the temperature and humidity skyrocket and the plants need some love, that board will signal pumps to go off.

The custom-built sensors monitor humidity, temperature, acidity, and electro conductivity of plants.

Founded by a small group, which consists of an architect, a landscape architect, landscape engineer and an economist, Green Studios now has 13 employees and have been commissioned to do no fewer than 30 patent-protected installations – in the Middle East and elsewhere.

According to Executive Magazine, the group is gearing up to install the largest green wall in the region – for Raouche 1090 – a massive residential development in Beirut.

So why do we care about green walls? For a lot of reasons. Decorative green walls can help improve air quality by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions and then expel oxygen that humans require to breathe. They also provide a heat sink, which is particularly important in the Middle East where ambient temperatures are really high.

But if Green Studios decides to start implementing food crops in their green walls, then we’re really talking business – since productive vertical gardens in urban environments could help to offset growing food insecurity.

The company is heading to the United States later this year in order to expand their horizons.

“We are going to look at other players, what are they doing, get a feel of the market, and exhibit as well, who we are, what do we do, what is our philosophy, what is our product, and our patent,” Corbani told the magazine.

Hopefully they won’t stray too far from the Middle East. We need them here!

:: Executive Magazine

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New scientific reports suggests that coastal flooding for Middle East and North African countries will be much worse than estimated six years ago. What countries are bracing for the severe effects of climate change? Egypt sets the stage.

In 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that global sea levels would rise between 8 inches and two feet over the next century. That was cause for concern along North Africa’s coast, especially in Egypt where rising sea levels would ostensibly drown Alexandria and much of the northern part of the country. Today, new evidence says it could be worse.

Scientists working for Environmental Research Letters believe that global sea levels will increase between 12 inches and 3 feet over the next century, or a 60 percent increase over the IPCC model.

For North Africa, this is a major worry, where much of the countries’ agricultural land is harnessed.

In Egypt, this means “Many of the towns and urban areas in the north of the Delta will suffer from the rise in the level of the Mediterranean with effect from 2020 and about 15 percent of Delta land is under threat from the rising sea level and the seepage into the ground water,” Environment Minister George Maged told a parliamentary committee in 2008 as reports began to flow over the future of sea levels.

The Nile Delta region is home to approximately half of Egypt’s 80 million people. The UN’s Environment Program says that a rise in only 0.5 meters (20 inches) would displace at least 4 million people and damage 1,800 square kilometers (700 square miles).

It gets worse still with a one-meter (39 inches) rise, which would displace at least 6 million people and damage more than double the farmland.

Efforts are already underway to limit the immediate impact of global warming in Alexandria.

In 2009, the local government spent approximately $300 million to build concrete walls to protect the city’s beaches, and in some areas sand is being dumped to help replenish deteriorating beaches.

Many of those barriers have yet to be completed.

According to an Alexandria government official, since the January 2011 uprising, no work has been done on the challenges facing the coast from climate change.

But there is hope, writes Shin-pei Tsay and Victoria Herrmann in a Carnegie Endowment brief on coastal water levels and the threat to major urban areas. Following a plan similar to what New York City has implemented may be a way of staving off the worst scientists’ predict, but it means more than erecting barriers.

“To help stave off these potentially devastating outcomes, coastal cities and communities should align comprehensive climate protection with economic development strategies,” they write.

“New York City, one of the world’s largest economic engines, is doing just that. PlaNYC began in 2007 as an economic development initiative, but when it became clear that the city would experience significant future impacts from climate change, the plan was transformed. Now it is a cutting-edge example of a city climate plan,” the paper continued.

For the MENA region, where vast numbers of population and agriculture exist today, the threat of rising sea levels is one that needs more action and more care if the region is to be able to cope with the environmental changes faced by climate change.

Image via tourdafrique

The post North Africa Coast Will Rise 60 Percent More than Previous Projection: New Study appeared first on Green Prophet.

Particularly well poised to supply solar modules to countries in the MENA region given that their thin film solar cells can withstand high temperatures and minimal water, First Solar already has a firm foot in the renewable door with a host of solar projects in various Gulf countries.

“Our extended dedication to Dii as a shareholder emphasizes First Solar’s commitment to the MENA region, where we see tremendous potential to build a sustainable market for solar power,” said Christopher Burghardt, First Solar’s Vice President of Business Development for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“Dii is the ideal industrial initiative to bring power from the deserts into reality.”

“I am very proud that First Solar decided to increase its commitment to our initiative,” said Paul van Son, CEO of Dii, who added that with 3 gigawatts of solar energy projects in the pipeline, First Solar has what it takes to help realize the “Desertec vision” of creating an industrial scale renewable energy market by 2050.

A leading provider of industrial-scale photovoltaic plants, First Solar is also well-established in the Middle East.

In addition to a new office in Dubai, the company is building an office in Saudi Arabia and a 13 MW PV plant for Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) – the first phase of the USD 3.3 billion Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park that will eventually pump 1,000MW back into the United Arab Emirates’ national grid.

First Solar also erected a 5 MW PV system for the Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company and even donated a small PV system to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, responding to press that claimed Desertec has lost track of its own goals following the recent launch of Desertec Saudi Arabia, the Desertec foundation pointed out the difference between it and Dii GmbH.

“Dii works particularly with German industry to create the conditions for projects in various countries in North Africa,” a recent press release emphasized.

“The DESERTEC Foundation,” on the other hand “is committed to the worldwide implementation of the DESERTEC Concept: a solution in the fight for a sustainable global energy policy and thus also for security, peace and social stability.”

“We support, advise and fight for the implementation of these solutions. Our objectives are clear and we believe in them!”

Photo Credit: boutmuet via Flickr

The post First Solar Takes on More Serious Desertec Role appeared first on Green Prophet.

PV Insider is hosting a free webinar tomorrow, Tuesday 5th March at 08.00am GMT / 09.00 CET / 12.00 GST to discuss specific challenges and opportunities associated with solar growth in Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Arab world. Hit the jump for more details and to find out how to register for this very important event.

Vahid Fotuhi, President of ESIA and Daniel Zywietz of the Clean Energy Business Counci/Ambata Capital will join Matt Carr at PV Insider for a 60 minute session, which will feature industry polls and an extended question and answers session.

Virtually undisputed is that the MENA region has enormous solar energy potential that can and should be exploited in order to promote greater economic and energy independence, while reducing overall carbon emissions.

But a host of both practical and political challenges have stunted growth until now, for which there are two major reasons, according to PV Insider.

Local governments and agencies are not well briefed on either the long term environmental or fiscal benefits of solar energy, and there is an absence of project experience in the region from which to gather lessons learned.

Dialog and education can not only help local officials incorporate photovoltaic power into their energy mix, but it can also equip outsiders with the specific cultural and practical exigencies of the region.

The webinar will provide a useful guide for all PV solar professionals interested to enter this lucrative but murky new market, and will also identify various off-grid opportunities for those who aren’t sure where to find them.

The webinar can be joined for free by following the link below; there is limited space, so sign up now!

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/746646086

Image of solar panels in the desert, Shutterstock

The post Free Webinar for MENA PV Solar Professionals appeared first on Green Prophet.

Similar to the list of active environmental organizations in Palestine shared earlier this week, this evolving tool reveals the extent to which each country in the Levant, Maghreb and Gulf have surged ahead with energy developments over the past few years, and the CEBC hopes this will inspire greater investor confidence.

Based in Masdar City, one of the most ambitious sustainable development projects not just in the Gulf, but in the world, CEBC is a non-profit organization that represents private companies pursuing clean energy programs, including wind, solar, waste to energy, biomass, energy efficiency, clean tech and even carbon capture services.

Whilst clean energy has a broad definition in this organization, there are some forms of energy that the CEBC is not willing to represent.

“Currently our members are focused around clean energy technologies other than nuclear. Nuclear forms a large part of the energy agenda in the region so is integral to the dialogue on energy solutions,” according to the company literature.

They’ve recently published this new interactive map made with Google technology. It is the first of its kind and the group hopes it will convince would-be investors that clean energy in the MENA region is not as terrifying as was once thought.

“By making this data available to the public, we hope to push further the development of the renewable-energy industry,” CEBC CEO Aaron Bielenberg told Business Week.

“The previous general lack of awareness made policy makers and capital providers feel the industry was smaller and hence riskier than it actually is.”

Whilst there has been significant growth and many Arab world countries have pledged to pursue aggressive clean energy goals, MEED Insight warns that the Arab Spring has forced many developers to hit the pause button while the political knots untie themselves.

Still, the CEBC map is more impressive than we imagined, although it would be better if we could all set aside our political and religious differences and acknowledge Israel’s progress in this department as well. It is one of the world leaders in clean tech, after all.

The post CEBC Maps 150 Clean Energy Projects in North Africa and the Middle East appeared first on Green Prophet.

According to Mercer’s latest Cost of Living survey Tokyo has become the world’s most expensive city for expatriates, pushing Luanda, Angola to second place while Karachi, Pakistan is ranked as the world least expensive city. The survey covers 214 cities across continents in the world and measures the relative costs (using NYC as base) of the 200 most significant expenses for expatriates. Mercer’s cost of living survey “is the world’s most comprehensive and is designed to help multinational companies and governments determine compensation allowances for their expatriate employees.”

Interestingly most Middle Eastern cities have dropped in rankings, according to Nathalie Constantin-Métral, Principal at Mercer this is “mainly because price increases on goods and services have been more moderate here than in our benchmark city, New York. Slight decreases in expatriate accommodation costs were also observed in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.”

Nevertheless, this is not true for Beirut (at spot 67), where living expenses are now the highest after Tel Aviv for the region. Beirut has gone up eight places from last year, and has overtaken Abu Dhabi (76, down nine places from last year) and Dubai (94, falling 13 places). These rising living expenses in Beirut are not hurting expatriates only, but locals too that face costs and prices that are not in line with average wages.

The large inflow and scale of investments from Gulf States in Beirut, are partly to blame for inflating the retail markets and creating a largely inflated economic situation in Lebanon, which is witnessing a shrinking middle class and a considerable exodus of young students to the US, Canada, Australia, Argentina and the UK.

In any case, if you are looking to work in the Middle East, North Africa region Tunisia (ranks at 209) remains the least expensive city in the region! Time for a change?

Image of Lebanese Lira from Shutterstock

The post Tel Aviv and Beirut Are Most Expensive City for Expatriates appeared first on Green Prophet.

“We do have projects in development,” he said, “in Morocco, and Algeria and Saudi Arabia, Oman, which we’re looking at. There’s real opportunity there. So we’re looking at projects in those markets there, not as part of the Desertec program, but part of the buildup of the potential of solar in the Middle East and North Africa region.”

SolrReserve uses similar technology to the Gemasolar project built in Spain by Abu Dhabi’s visionary state-funded clean energy company Masdar. Because both use molten salt as both the transfer liquid and the storage medium, they can supply electricity long after dark.

(Related: Solar to Light Our Nights Gets Hotter)

“Our facility is a similar technology to theirs other than that ours is about six times as large as their project”, he told me. “So their project is really more of a pilot project. They’re I think 17 MW, we’re 110 MW. Ours is the first commercial utility-sized project of this type.”

I asked him for his impressions of Saudi interest in solar. He told me that among other projects Solar Reserve is looking at in Morocco, and Algeria and Oman, they are also looking at a possible Saudi Arabian project too.

I was surprised.

“Yeah, we’ve actually had a lot of really good reaction,” he said. “In fact our chief technology officer is in Saudi Arabia this week. We’ve had, we’ve been active for about eighteen months. The difficulties the Saudis have is their economy is all oil based. Really they want to maximise their exports of oil, but really what they’re using a lot of their oil for power generation in the country. It’s fine if oil is $20 a barrel, but now that they can sell it for $100 plus a barrel, it’s not a very cost-effective use of their oil.

“Plus they kind of see real declines in their oil production over the next twenty five years so they’re looking at ways to extend their oil export capability. They announced a program where they’re going to try and replace 20% of their electricity generation with solar by 2020, and thats a pretty big program, I mean, you’re talking thousands of megawatts”.

“They really only in the last couple of years, have started to really increase their solar activity. We expect there will be projects going into construction in Saudi next year. Hopefully with us, but certainly, with someone. We expect that their program will kick off next year. We hope we get can projects in construction in 2013.”

So soon?

“They’ve announced a request for bids that will be happening for later in the year. We hope in the next few months that they will identify that.”

What size are the Saudis looking for?

“Same size as our Nevada project, but they are really looking at multiple projects, so we could be looking at projects that are 500 MW and above – so like five Tonopahs, our Nevada-type projects on one site.”

I also asked him if he had any thoughts on the BrightSource (non) IPO that so terrified the solar world as a sign of certain doom. He was pretty blithe and unfazed by it.

“BrightSource is a good company. They’ve got strong projects in construction”, he said. “They are a different technology than ours. Clearly the markets right now are not very strong, either for Initial Public Offerings, or even just the business climate is weak right now. Its improving, we continue to see an improvement in the economy”.

“Our decision was not to look at IPO activity in 2012, we didn’t think the market makes sense right now and its clear from BrightSource’s activity that it’s not. You know, theyre a good company, they’ve got a nice pipeline of projects and we expect they’ll continue to be successful – we have a different business model, on IPO we’ll probably look at that next year”.

The post Interview: SolarReserve For the MENA Region? appeared first on Green Prophet.

The funding for many of the great renewable energy projects within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and other developing regions, will continue to be directed via the World Bank, Reuters reports.

The funds support projects which cut climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations under the EU’s cap & trade law, and is likely to be needed for the next five years while the UN designs the climate deal that will supercede it.

A typical example of funding of clean energy projects to cut climate change: Egypt Now Contracting a Whopping 1000 MW Wind Farm!

The post World Bank to Fill in till Global Climate Deal? appeared first on Green Prophet.