Emirates Begins World’s First Zero-Carbon City
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — This Gulf desert nation, one of the world’s most environmentally unfriendly with its ubiquitous air conditioning, swimming pools, and SUVs, may be looking to redeem itself. It has begun building what it calls Masdar City, the world’s first zero-carbon city. Groundbreaking on construction took place earlier this month.
Cars will be banned, with a light rail serving residents inside the 1,482-acre city as well as taking them to the nearby city of Abu Dhabi. Organic food will be grown in the area and encouraged, garbage will be recycled, and waste water will be reused in Masdar, Arabic for “source.”
Most of the city’s energy is to be generated by solar power — though developers have not given an exact percentage — and water will be provided through a solar-powered desalination plant.
Masdar City, which is being developed by an Abu Dhabi state-owned company, is expected to be completed by 2015 at an estimated cost of $22 billion. It is intended to become home to about 50,000 people and host 1,500 companies, developers said.
Environmentalists say the new city — powered mainly by solar energy and recycling waste and water — is a nice idea, but the Emirates shouldn’t stop there.
“Every little bit helps,” said Jonathan Loh, a British biologist who co-authored a 2006 World Wildlife Fund report that measured consumption by nations around the world. “It would be best if the UAE reduced energy consumption throughout the country not just in one location.”
The United Arab Emirates has the world’s largest ecological footprint a capita, according to the WWF report. That means each of its residents uses up more of the world’s resources than any other person in the world.
A glance at Dubai makes it clear why. Nearly every indoor space — including sprawling malls and giant villas — is air conditioned, seen as a necessity in a country where the winters are hot and the summers blazing. Swimming pools with chilled water, an indoor ski slope that produces snow when it’s 120 degrees outside, and an all-ice restaurant push up the electricity bill.
