Green Cities

Masdar City is the GCC's foremost green cities development.

After attending the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, UME looks at the growing problem of urbanisation, and what it will take to create more green cities.

In a region where cities shoot up out of nowhere and a young population continues to expand, a trend towards urbanisation is almost certainly inevitable.

The problem with increased city dwelling, as pointed out by industry professionals at the World Future Energy Summit held in Abu Dhabi last month, is that with it comes high carbon emissions, inefficient building and a renewed stress on communities and system capacity.

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In a discussion about how to minimise the impact of climate change, it is therefore equally inevitable that the issue of growing urbanisation crops up.

Whilst currently cities account for almost 80 percent of the world’s total carbon emissions, by 2050 three quarters of the globe’s population will reside in an urban area. In the gulf specifically, cities will have experienced a 250 percent increase in energy demand by 2030.

Making the situation worse, according to WFES conference speakers, is the existing “business as usual” approach to going green, with only a small amount of effort to achieve LEED ratings – themselves flawed.

What needs to replace it, they say, is a city approach, whereby architects and developers work together to design and develop eco-efficient urban areas, or “green cities” as they have been rightly dubbed.

“It is important in this part of the world that we are honest, and that we come up with true solutions,” said Sue Roaf, a professor in architectural engineering from the UK’s Heriot Watt University.

“At the moment we don’t have a handle on rates of change, which happen nowhere more quickly than in the built environment.”

Another recommendation is to act now, rather than later. With US$350 trillion set aside for infrastructure projects around the globe between now and 2040, there are clear opportunities to reinvent cities, and some obvious scope for developing a new culture of eco-efficient living.

In the Middle East, where many cities are just developing, it will be important to target them in their early years. “Typically cities spend the most in the early years when a lot of infrastructure is being built,” says Booz and Co. vice president Nick Pennell.

“It is important to get small developing cities on the right track from day one.” But the question remains: what is a green city? And how can architects, developers and consultants go about creating one?