Once upon a time, Dubai was a small port and fishing village. However, since the turn of the millennium, Dubai has blossomed and grown into one of the busiest metropolitan cities in the world.
Dubai boasts numerous skyscrapers, including the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. It is also renowned as a major hub across many global industry sectors including finance, tourism, real estate, aviation, oil and transport.
All this activity naturally results in a higher-than-average carbon footprint. In 2006, the United Arab Emirates was identified as the country with the world’s largest ecological footprint, based on figures per capita, by the World Wildlife Fund. Much or this came from high carbon emission levels and Dubai, as the largest consumer of the emirates, was a strong contributor.
However, since 2006, Dubai’s leaders have been working towards building a sustainable city – a goal they aim to achieve by 2050.
Increased Urbanisation
Property developers and real estate experts – such as Ryan Mahoney of Dubai, UAE – can tell you there have been decades of increased urbanisation within the emirate. This has played a role in increasing carbon emissions, with millions more cars on the roads. However, the government is now using this increased urbanisation to its ecological advantage.
Over $100 million has recently been invested in indoor farming initiatives in built-up areas of the UAE, including vertical farming and hydroponics. The embedded short video explains the concept of vertical farming.
This improves food security, reduces reliance on imports and makes the most of the available space.
Sustainable City
Sustainable City is a new housing development recently completed within Dubai, where initiatives such as waste and water recycling result in a development that consumes less energy than it produces.
Further out from the city in the desert, plans are well underway for the construction of a giant solar power plant. Once complete, this plant will be able to deliver some of the greenest and cheapest energy on the planet to homes throughout Dubai and the wider UAE. The embedded PDF looks at how to define a sustainable city.
Transport Initiatives
With private cars identified as one of the leading causes of carbon emissions in Dubai in 2006, multiple transport initiatives have since been put in place to reduce the number of cars on the road without reducing convenience to travellers.
These include the driverless metro trains running the length of the city on a regular basis, fitting public buses with low emission engines, and increasing the use of hybrid vehicles. You can learn more about green transport initiatives by taking a look at the infographic attachment to this post.