Qatar, a small peninsula off the East Coast of Felix Arabia, the rising star of the Persian Gulf, hosted its biggest conference ever, COP18 (“COP” stands for Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)) and Gulf Sustainability Expo from November 26th to December 7th, 2012. COP18 gathered around 20,000 visitors, including 17,000 delegates from 194 countries and 1,500 journalists, on the small peninsula. While COP18 and the simultaneous Sustainability Expo highlighted climate change and other environmental issues throughout its 10-day duration, the world witnessed the impact of climate change in action as a typhoon raged through the Philippines and a 7.3 earthquake hit Japan. Though it is the first time Doha hosted COP, environmentalism and environmental issues are not new topics in the GCC and the greater Middle East.
Progress arrived late and moved quickly in the GCC. Old pictures on the Internet dating from the 1980s and 1990s of Dubai, Doha and Manama show just how underdeveloped these cities were not so long a ago. It is a tribute to the GCC leaders’ respective visions and ability to implement such visions that the GCC (the six Gulf Cooperation States – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – in and around the Persian Gulf, aka the “Arabian Gulf” depending on who is speaking, or simply the “Gulf” or “Khalij” in Arabic) has grown so quickly and impressively. Buildings, neighborhoods and whole cities have sprung up like mushrooms everywhere. As recently as 8 years ago, entire neighborhoods in various parts of the GCC were either desert or sea.
Speed-of-light progress and growth have impacted the environment (e.g., high consumption of energy to both air condition buildings and to desalinate water, and air and water pollution). Quoting The Living Planet Report 2010 in their 2011 article on “The Role of NGOs in Tackling Environmental Issues”, Razan Al Mubarak and Tanzeed Alam concluded that, because UAE, Qatar and Kuwait were “three of the top ten ranked countries in the world in terms of their Ecological Footprint per capita”, if the rest of the world consumed at that rate, “you would need six planet earths to sustain that level of consumption, which is four times the world average.” Thankfully, awareness on all levels of society of the need to conserve resources and protect the environment is growing. A recent advertisement campaign in Doha asked residents to turn the air conditioning off before leaving the house. Qatar established the Qatar National Food Security Program, which set itself the goal in 2012 to reclaim salty land so that 40% of its food supply comes from within Qatar. In April 2012, Qatar Foundation International launched the Youth Ambassadors for Science & the Environment (YASE) to help train future environmentalists.
Land reclamation projects in the Middle East, which is common in the Gulf and started in Egypt in the early 1950s, pose a threat to the aquatic environment. Much of Bahrain’s “center” is reclaimed: Bab Al Bahrain, (Arabic for “Gateway to Bahrain”), the entrance to the Manama Souq, used to be on the Persian Gulf (which is now a 10-minute walk away); the Gulf Hotel, which used to have a beach, is now landlocked; and, Bahrain Financial Harbour, a huge commercial center in Manama, and Amwaj Island, a large residential area near the airport, emerged from the sea like Atlantis resurfacing. Abu Dhabi built Saadiyat, or “Happiness”, Island, a 27 square km multi-faceted project on reclaimed land, 500 meters off the coast of Abu Dhabi. In Dubai, the Palm Islands, the World Islands, the Dubai Marina Burg Al Arab are among the most famous land reclamation projects in the UAE. Kuwait, Oman and Qatar (The Pearl, West Bay) and Saudi Arabia have all reclaimed land for construction projects. In Bahrain, a debate raged about whether the reclamation destroyed the coral reefs or if it they were already dead pre-reclamation. Similar concerns arose in Saudi Arabia about the impact of reclamation projects on aquatic life and mangrove trees on both in Jeddah on the Red Sea and in the Eastern Provinces of Saudi Arabia. The concern reached to the point where, a few years ago, an fisherman’s association protested and successfully halted a reclamation project on the beach in Tarut in Eastern Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain, which means “Two Seas” – the reasons for which are debated, was once known as the “land of one million palm trees” but trees are dwindling by comparison apparently because of the oil drilling techniques that sacrificed the underground sweet water sea that nourished the trees. Bahraini fishermen also suffered from the effects of land reclamation and seabed dredging that reduced fish numbers and negatively impacting the industry. To bring green to the desert, the Bahraini government launched a “Plant a Palm Tree” drive in 2010 to plant a palm tree in every home.
Being one of the hottest regions in the world, it is logical that the GCC has been the home to some of the world’s most exciting renewable energy projects on macro and micro levels. Masdar, established in 2006 in Abu Dhabi, UAE, is a renewable energy project par excellence, whose aim is to “transform the way we think about power generation, distribution and consumption” by developing the renewable energy and sustainable technology industries. In 2012, Masdar sponsored solar energy programs in Tonga, Afghanistan and Mauritania. In September 2012, Masdar’s temporary one-year project “Sustainable Energy for All” became a permanent organization.
Reuters recently published an article online entitled “Gas rich Qatar to invest up to US$20 billion in solar energy plant.” The plant is due to be completed in 2018. Furthering Sultan Qaboos’s 2020 Vision to Oman’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman is hosting the Gulf Eco Conference and Expo 2013. The Omani conference will focus on clean energy future, specifically regulations and policy on renewable energy, finance and investment on renewal energy projects, solutions to energy challenges and climate change, and waste management and recycling. Abu Dhabi will host Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2013 drawing 30,000 participants from 150 countries from 13 to 17 January 2013.
The environment is not just a governmental concern in the Middle East; it is also a private concern with small businesses and consultancies established with the environment and sustainability in mind against the backdrop of environmental challenges, ranging from pollution, lost arable land, desertification and increased salt in the soil damaging crop yields and marine pollution. Access to fresh water is problematic throughout the Middle East. Lack of farmland in the GCC has the GCC investing heavily in farms in more fecund countries overseas. Commercial initiatives have also been on the rise. In many Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, sustainability projects on both the grassroots and commercial levels are becoming more prevalent. In Egypt, the Mokattam Recycling School, run by a local non-profit organization in partnership with Proctor & Gamble, is a project that engaged poor youth to recycle shampoo bottles thereby averting counterfeiting. Each day, Cairo produces 14,000 tons of waste, 8,000 tons of which is collected by a self-funded group of Cairenes, known as the “Zabaleen.” The impoverished Zabaleen (now the subject of a documentary with the same name: http://zabaleen.wordpress.com/collect), sort, recycle or dispose of the waste and have thus become accidental environmentalists.
Recycling is on the rise in the Middle East. In Bahrain, Recycling for Charity is a company that does what its name implies and, although its recycling bins dot Bahrain, there is still a question mark over where the recyclables go once they are picked up. Doha’s cultural village, Katara, also promotes recycling by providing separate bins for glass, paper and plastic.
Sustainability is the overarching theme of “Rafea: Solar Mama”, directed by Mona Eldaief, a riveting and dramatic documentary that was shown both at Doha Tribeca Film Festival in November 2012 and which opened COP18. It is a true story of Rafea, one of two Jordanian Bedouin women who are chosen to participate in an initiative sponsored by the Jordanian Ministry of the Environment to attend a 6-month program at the Barefoot College in India to study to become solar engineers. Despite oppressive traditionalism, an obstructive husband and demanding children, Rafea perseveres, determined to work and improve her life. Upon returning, the two women installed solar power in about 80 homes in their village. The Sahara Forest Project (http://saharaforestproject.com/), in Qatar and Jordan, uses what the Middle East has a lot of (desert, sun, seawater and carbon) to make energy and food.
3BL (“Triple Bottom Line”) Associates in Bahrain is a social impact and sustainability consultancy and “think-do-tank” that focuses on sustainable and regenerative development in the Middle East. Reem Al Khalifa’s GreenBar Inc. (http://www.greenbarinc.com/), which sells all natural botanical oils, is another example of environmentally friendly businesses coming out of the GCC. Environmental consultancies are growing in number in the Middle East as governmental and popular concern rises. Companies, like Starbucks, run “beach cleaning” days on a regular basis.
Though most (not all) GCC countries are oil rich, alternative energies are being explored in the region. Dr. Hanan Mubarak Buflasa recently published her book on “The Effect of Wind Power in the Production and Distribution of Electricity in Bahrain.” During the Qatar Sustainability Expo last week, Mohamed bin Abdullah Al-Attiyah, chairman of the National Campaign for Ideal Behaviour launched The Million Trees Campaign. First Solar, a company that builds thin-solar panels, plans to open a Middle East Office in Dubai to help tap regional market and won an order to build the first 13MW of Dubai’s 1GW solar array.
Unfortunately, as many parts of the Middle East still dealing with the impact of the Arab Spring and its aftermath, the environment is the last priority, although most countries have environmental laws and policies in place and some have signed international environmental treaties. Corruption, poverty and political unrest in Egypt, for example, renders the environment a low priority. In the more peaceful and comparatively politically stable GCC, there is a fine balance between rapid progress and protecting the environment. Although COP18 has now concluded, the extension of the Kyoto protocol to 2020 is encouraging, as is the increasing awareness and continual shift in consciousness on the popular level in the GCC towards a healthier environment and sustainable future.
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