Palm flood - 'Branson wrong'

The Palm and The World island projects are safe from the rising Arabian Gulf sea levels for at least another 800 years, according to developer Nakheel’s top environment chief – 750 years longer than Sir Richard Branson’s claims earlier this week that they will disappear underwater in half a century.

Shaun Lenehan, head of environment at Nakheel, told Arabian Business that Virgin Group chairman Sir Richard’s “heart was in the right place” in his efforts to reverse climate change but that his claims concerning the Palm and The World projects were “completely false”.

“I back his [Sir Richard] sentiment that the world needs to respond to climate change and his heart is in the right place but to clarify, he got it completely wrong,” Lenehan said.

“The Arabian Gulf has risen 12cm in the last 100 years and we have thoroughly investigated this. In the next 100 years the sea level will rise between 12cm and 50cm every century”.

“We have factored this into our designs and have built the Palm Jumeirah 4m above sea level. There are extremely large tracts of coastal communities that will go under centuries before the Palm Jumeirah. Even parts of Deira in Dubai are lower than the Palm,” added Lenahan.

If Nakheel’s calculations are correct and sea levels rise at Lenehan’s predicted rates then water will only reach the Palms in the next 800 to 4000 years.

In a keynote address to Leaders in Dubai business forum on Sunday Sir Richard said: “Over the next 50 years we will see the Palm projects and the World flooded by water and disappear if the issue of climate change is not addressed by global governments.”

“We are continuing to create this blanket of carbon that is getting thicker and thicker every year and which will ultimately heat up to such an extent that every fish will die and the earth will become uninhabitable."

Sir Richard has committed US$3bn of Virgin's own profits to developing clean energy and has offered US$25m to anyone who can eradicate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“The Maldives will be first to go under water, followed by Polynesian Islands,” Lenahan added. “I used to live in the Maldives and there was a 15cm gap between the water and the top of the roads. Parts of Europe including London will go under before the Palm.”

Asked whether Sir Richard’s two own personal islands in the Caribbean would go underwater before the Palm, Lenahan added that the Virgin boss was “high and dry for another millennium” as his land pointed out of the sea “like mountains”.