Several key green solutions are still out of UAE's reach

Several solutions, to develop the UAE as a sustainable country are still out of reach, said a climate change expert, such as reducing energy subsidies. However policies to develop renewable energy, grid connection and reduced water use are attainable. Ideal economic measures could also include pricing energy at real cost, including a weightage for environmental damage, said Doug Cook, First Secretary, Energy and Climate Change British Embassy Abu Dhabi. "While this may be politically unlikely, particularly in the light of the current regional atmospherics, this would have the single biggest impact on bringing forward energy efficiency measures, clean technology, or behaviour change.  And this does not need to be bad this would establish the UAE economy as the first in the region, and possibly the world to move to new technologies and services," said Cook. "We don't necessarily need to reduce overall energy demand," he said. "The key is how the energy is generated, transported and used. If it is generated in a ‘green' manner, then we can match growing demand patterns as populations increase without having a detrimental impact on the world around us. Using less per capita is valuable too. At present, far too much energy is wasted," he said. "In the UAE this tends to be the energy used to desalinate water that is then used for irrigation. If water usage was far more strictly controlled, then the energy demand in the UAE would decrease significantly," Cook told Gulf News, after an Emirates Environment Group lecture on Sunday evening, titled ‘Energy and Climate Change for Healthy Cities'. The weather and current behaviour patterns are big hurdles to developing clean cities in the Middle East, but other political and cultural measures could be assumed. "A political measure would be to define and communicate an effective renewables' policy that includes an energy price, a guaranteed grid connection and an open, technology-neutral and transparent renewables market. This would have a huge impact on growing the sector and reducing fossil fuel generation," he said. Carbon dioxide levels emitted globally last year were the highest on record, according to the International Energy Agency, pushing away any idea of developing clean cities around the world and preventing temperatures rising more than two degrees. Scientists claim if the world's temperature rises by two degrees Celsius, humanity could face dangerous climate change impacts. In 2010, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide was released into the atmosphere, an increase of 1.6Gt from 2009 by mainly burning fossil fuel for energy production, the Guardian had reported. According to the World Bank, each UAE resident produces 31.03 metric tonnes of CO2 [carbon dioxide] annually, based on statistics from 2007. From / Gulf News