An important producer of natural gas and oil, the UAE has become known in the last decade for its growing efforts to fight climate change and advance the use of clean energy. So it’s not that surprising to find out that the UAE is going to represented in the upcoming Rio+20 Summit by a delegation of more than 100 members, aiming to both learn and provide its own lessons to the rest of the world.

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Among the highlights of last month’s trip to the World Future Energy Summit  was a tour of Masdar City, Abu Dhabi’s living laboratory in sustainable development and what is held out to be among the most sustainable cities ever built (at least in the modern sense).   Masdar City has progressed significantly since my last [...]

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Leon Kaye explains that Masdar City does not have it all right, nor should it: at a fundamental level, it is an experiment. And that is why this UAE hub is a leader.

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Today we’re faced with a double crisis – environmental and economic, and all across the world there’s a tug of war between the need for sustained economic growth and the imperative for environmental protection.

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Here in Abu Dhabi, through the investment arm of Masdar, Masdar Capital, we continue to see interesting opportunities for cleantech investing, and a number of worthy renewable energy projects both within the region and around the world.

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How can we successfully rise to these challenges? In theory, development that is sustainable and not damaging to the planet is doable. In reality, there are challenges at every step, and so far our record on moving towards sustainability in a collective manner, with a common framework, appears to have been quite feeble.

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Since the discovery of oil just over a century ago, the Middle East has experienced major economic growth from this bountiful resource under the ground. The world was a different place then to what it is now. Oil, it seemed, was the answer to all our prayers and for the most part it has been, and for that we are extremely grateful.

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Now that the world’s population has officially reached seven billion and with around half of this now living in urban areas, new and creative strategies in energy generation are definitely needed for the increasing number of us, and distributed renewable power generation presents a viable and importantly, sustainable solution.

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In 1999, fewer than 500 companies issued sustainability reports. That number is now over 3,500. Once only a concern for a few niche companies with sustainability as a core value and brand differentiator, corporate sustainability has moved categorically into the mainstream.

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The concept of the smart city is one that holds a lot of promise and potential in terms of how computerized, networked public infrastructure might improve energy efficiency, resource management, and the overall quality of life in cities. Cisco created an interactive infographic showcasing its smart, connected City of the Future. The company also recently announced the addition of a whole new suite of technologies and services that are aimed at helping utilities modernize their grids.

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Governments the world over have been baffled as they seek to address these challenges, not least because of their continuing dependency on hydrocarbon-based energy solutions. This is understandable; it’s hard to wean society off a source of energy that has helped humankind develop by leaps and bounds in the space of a century.

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One of the highlights of this year’s World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi was a tour of Planet Solar’s incredible solar powered yacht – the Turanor.  The largest solar powered boat ever to set sail, the Turanor is on the final leg of a round-the-world tour, the first time anyone has managed to sail [...]

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This post was originally featured on the Zayed Future Energy Prize blog. By Roger Ballentine, President of Green Strategies There has been much-hyped talk about the massive growth of the Chinese economy in recent years and how it’s poised to overtake the world’s current largest economy, the United States. Nowhere is that talk at a [...]

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Former Energy Secretary and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has spent the last few days in Abu Dhabi at the World Future Energy Summit discussing renewable energy and sustainability issues with world leaders and luckily for us, a few bloggers. Our conversation this morning was a mostly optimistic look at the inevitability of renewable energy’s [...]

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If you still don’t know much about Masdar City, I’ll have an in-depth photo essay and tour online in a day or two.   Do your homework as it’s likely that the global audience will start to hear about progress at Masdar more regularly in the future.  The (almost) entirely self-sustaining, carbon free experiment in the desert [...]

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Last week we reported on Scotland’s ambitious target to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2020.  It turns out a major component of the plan may derive from another ambitious development – a tight partnership with Abu Dhabi on technology development and investment.  Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond outlined the agreement today at the World Future Energy Summit [...]

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As an American, I’m always a little doubtful about how much good the United Nations can actually accomplish – especially when it comes to radically changing the face of worldwide energy production. Nonetheless, Ban Ki Moon gave a motivated and well-thought-out talk this morning at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.  Even if it [...]

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It’s that time of year again – when global thought leaders and politicians descend upon the desert emirate of Abu Dhabi to discuss the future of energy and all that relates to it. The World Future Energy Summit begins tomorrow and I’ll be here to cover it. This year’s theme ‘Powering Sustainable Innovation,’ will manifest [...]

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One of the more interesting projects that caught my eye at last month’s World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi were a dozen or so fantastical design concepts called the Land Art Generator Initiative. The idea? A design contest to create whimsical, fantastically massive public art – that also generates electricity for the grid.  My takeaway?  It’s [...]

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My favorite kinds of “green” solutions are the low tech ones based on technology that’s been around for thousands of years. When it comes to heating and cooling buildings or even whole cities, ancient solutions are often available, and are almost always much cheaper than an energy intensive alternative like air conditioning. Last week, I [...]

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I’m not a heavy user of Twitter, but I’ve found it to be very useful for a handful of things. One of those is creating dialogue around a particular event. If you get enough people tweeting about the same thing in a certain period of time, you wind up with a collective of notes and [...]

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by Susan Brautovich, LEED AP Dubai may be whipped by recession and racked with debt, but Abu Dhabi is humming along just fine. A go-slow policy and fat oil reserves helped insulate Abu Dhabi from the worst effects of the credit crunch and the Gulf building frenzy that almost sank Dubai. Despite some slowing, plans [...]

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Fresh out of Masdar’s Smart Grid panel here at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Kenneth Westrick of 3Tier sat down to talk with me a little bit about what his company does, and to answer a few more questions about how better data helps a “smart grid” work. 3Tier is a renewable [...]

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Our tour of what will become Masdar City began today with a ride on the world’s first fully operational trackless “Personal Rapid Transit” system. Picture a driverless car that you summon with a button which then takes you to any destination you like within a city. That’s the idea behind this system of 4 passenger [...]

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I’ll be covering the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi next week – an honor and a privilege for TriplePundit and something I hope will produce a lot of interesting stories. The event will be an extraordinary gathering of thousands of people from dozens of countries in the heart of the oil world to [...]

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