| Kippreport.com

Reasons the UAE has such a high carbon footprint…

October 14, 2010 12:02 by Reuters

The United Arab Emirates, the world’s third-largest oil exporter, has one of the highest per capita carbon footprints in the world.

According to a U.N. Development Programme report in 2003, the UAE emitted 33.6 tonnes per capita, second only to nearby Qatar and over nine times the world average of 3.7 tonnes.

The 2008 WWF Living Planet Report gave the UAE the world’s worst ecological footprint per person. It placed the United States second and fellow Gulf Arab state Kuwait in third place.

The ecological footprint measures humanity’s demand on the biosphere in terms of biologically productive land and sea required to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. The UAE has said it is becoming greener. The following lists some of the UAE’s green and not so green credentials:

NOT SO GREEN

PRIVATE JETS

Dubai’s Executive Flight Service handled 6,060 flights and 19,797 customers in 2009, according to figures from Dubai International Airport.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Dubai Taxis made 70 million journeys in 2009, in which they transported more than 140 million passengers, the emirate’s transport authority said. That compares with 120 million people who took public buses in 2009.

Since its inauguration in September 2009, the number of passengers using the Dubai Metro has risen from about 40,000 a day to more than 120,000 a day. In total, it has transported more than 19 million people so far and expects 35 million passengers in 2010.

FUEL CONSUMPTION

In 2006, the UAE’s population of around 6 million consumed nearly 500 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of gas.

Germany, which has a population of more than 80 million, burned 942 billion kWh in 2008, according to the German energy industry association (BDEW).

THE WORLD

One of the most ambitious schemes in Dubai, The World is a collection of man-made islands shaped into the continents and countries of the world. As the slump has frozen much building activity, homes have yet to be built there. If completed, the islands would be reachable only by private jet or boat.

Property developer Nakheel used 34 million tonnes of rock to build the 27 kilometre breakwater that surrounds the 300 islands in the development.

Nakheel has said its activities have no harmful effect on nature, although environmentalists have said the consequences of such extensive artificial islands on the natural ecosystem are unknown and could be damaging.

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