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Dubai in particular, and the GCC in general, love to have and be the biggest and the best. In many ways it is admirable. Young countries standing up to be noticed. However, wouldn't it be good if they all wanted to be the biggest and the best for a more worthy cause - the most 'green' country on the planet, for example, rather than having its tallest building.
Not that there is anything wrong with having the tallest building. The Burj Dubai will no doubt be a wonderful piece of architecture and an engineering feat. However, while it will help Dubai to take its place at the centre of world attention, so too would a concerted drive for the environment. At the moment, Dubai's reputation on the issue is poor across the board - from rubbish produced per capita (one of the highest in the world), to the emirate's carbon footprint (one of the highest in the world).
In some ways this is not surprising. Dubai - like many cities in the GCC - has been built in the desert. A harsh environment creates huge energy needs to make it more bearable - especially in the summer months. A ski slope doesn't help either - although to be fair to the developer it has, apparently, been built in as environmentally friendly way as possible.
Making matters worse is that there is little education on environmental issues in the GCC and little sense of ownership in its cities - hence an absence of social responsibility or thought when it comes to producing and disposing of rubbish - at an individual or commercial level.
We at ITP Publishing, the owners and publishers of this site, are not above this thoughtlessness. Arabian Business, the magazine, recently published its 'green issue' - wrapped in plastic.
So what can the country do to drag itself to the top of the eco tree and to make its residents think and be more careful? Herewith my recommendations.
1. Make cars expensive. Tax them as Singapore does to make alternatives attractive - car sharing, busses, use of waterways... However keep tax lower on smaller, more efficient cars, and don't tax electric vehicles at all.
2. Make those who can still afford to drive gas guzzling cars - a group that should only be the elite - pay through the nose for doing so. Increase the number of toll roads - raise the cost, and divert revenues to alternatives.
3. Raise the cost of energy into commercial offices and houses and use the revenue to subsidise alternative energies. At the moment, despite almost perfect conditions, there is no economic argument for investing in solar technology, for example.
4. Tighten building regulations. Most GCC countries don't go through a long consultative process when it comes to introducing new regulation. While that may not always be a good thing, it does allow countries to act decisively.
5. Introduce huge fines for litter and dumping waste - and incentivise recycling. Put recycling bins everywhere across the city. Pay people for their waste - e.g. glass and bottles.
6. Get rid of plastic. Make all shopping bags paper based and bio-degradable. Force local manufacturers to make packaging biodegradable.
7. Tax airplane travel.
8. Ration the supply of water in countries like the UAE to houses. While the country can afford desalinisation plants, the earth and the sea probably can't.
9. Turn off the AC in shopping malls during the winter. Let them be warmer in summer.
10. Slow the economy and don't build so much.
Most of the list would no doubt be unpopular, and would impact the quality of life of Gulf residents. If pushed too much too soon many people would vote with their feet and could even leave. For expatriates it is, after all, an economic calculation whether they stay in the GCC.
Gulf countries need to raise the temperature slowly. Put a frog into boiling water and it will die. Put the frog in water and slowly raise the temperature to boiling point, and the frog will survive its hot bath. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)
The GCC needs to begin putting in place green measures, and keep raising the pressure, slowly but surely, until it can claim to be the greenest region in the world - which surely must be the biggest, tallest and best boast of them all?
