A UAE newspaper has said that Dubai is showing the way forward as the world gathers in Paris to find a global deal on how to stop climate change and make the world a sustainable habitat for all.
The Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 is an ambitious but absolutely necessary plan to move Dubai from its current overwhelming reliance on non-sustainable hydrocarbons to 70 percent clean energy by 2050, under a bold plan that was announced this week by Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
“Dubai’s ambitious plan is to become the city with the smallest carbon footprint in the world by 2050, and, more importantly, also establish a sustainable model that can be used by other cities also seeking to support economic growth without damaging the environment,” said Gulf News in an editorial on Monday.
This is another example of the UAE seeking to do something innovative and globally significant; not being satisfied by simply doing it on its own but seeking to set a practical example that the rest of the world can use for their own (and the world’s) benefit. In a different way but with similar intentions, the UAE is also doing this with its gold standard practice on nuclear fuel and its new nuclear reactors in Al Baraka.
The Clean Energy Strategy 2050 may sound ambitious, but it starts very realistically with the intention of getting just 7 percent of Dubai’s power from clean sources by 2020. It is based on substantial investments in the massive solar parks in Al Marmoum that will transform Dubai’s energy equation in the coming decades and prove to a dubious world that solar power can handle large urban projects.
“They will not only get Dubai into the right place for genuine sustainability but will also make Dubai increasingly self sufficient in energy, which will be a major advantage in the future as hydrocarbon pricing becomes ever more volatile as the raw material starts to run out,” concluded the Dubai-based daily.
Source: Emirates news agency
