In Janina Benz’s blog post in “Code_n Blog”, she describes long term projects that currently in development: the most famous being Masdar City, a project developed by the Mubadala Development Company, in the hopes of extending their reach towards renewable energy.

Benz is accurate in saying that not many people would associate the UAE with sustainability. For more information, I looked into Masdar’s website to find that the “Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is one of the 10 largest oil companies in the world”. So indeed, it is most incredible for me to know that Mubadala is spending billions in research and the construction of the city, that is expected to be finished by 2035.

The author of the post does raise some questions, whether this might only be a “showcase” and not a model that could in the future be applied to larger cities around the globe.

I have personally visited Masdar Institute, which is the hub of technological research aimed towards finding new forms of renewable energy. It is open to the public, and from what I’ve seen has a long way to go before we can judge how successful it will be. However, from what I know, it has gained international recognition from the moment it launched, and hopefully becomes a leader in promoting awareness of the environmental issues of our time.

Sources:

http://blog.code-n.org/tag/masdar-city/

http://mubadala.ae/portfolio/masdar/

http://www.masdar.ae/en/Menu/index.aspx?MenuID=42&CatID=12&mnu=Cat