In Abu Dhabi

IT MIGHT seem like an unlikely destination where a green revolution might take place: An oil and gas-producing state with little public transport, dirt cheap oil, millions of cars and palaces built with gold.

But Abu Dhabi is proving to the world this week, just how serious it is about being the world's leader in clean technologies.

At the World Future Energy Summit, there is a stunning number of delegates. About 15,000 people have descended on the state for this conference to talk about renewable energy challenges.

The speaker's list reads like the who's who of the energy industry, from Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to Professor Lord Nicholas Stern who penned the Stern report, and captains of industry such as chief executives of energy firms such as BP, and last but not least, environmental activists such as Greenpeace.

There is an atmospheric dynamism present at the conference that's taken me by surprise.

I remembered a couple of years ago, when Abu Dhabi announced its initiative for a zero-waste, zero carbon city of the future, many were skeptical. Critics said it'd be "all talk and no action". Even I had forgotten about it, choosing instead to focus my attention or interest on the two high profile eco-cities currently underway in China, Singapore and Tianjin's project, and Arup-designed one in Dongtan.

So when I got a call from the Masdar team out of the blue to invite me as the only journalist from Singapore to cover the World Future Energy Summit - and get a sneak preview of the construction of the eco-city, I jumped at the oppportunity.

Masdar's rate of growth is astonishing. But scarcely a year after it broke ground, Abu Dhabi's Masdar city is a thriving bed of construction, with a 10 MW solar installation 70 per cent of the way there, powering their site offices and construction activity. 

The masterplan for the city was like something out of a sci-fi film, the virtual-reality video of which was shown to journalists on the way to visiting the city.

Capsule-shaped pods that run along light rail lines connect people from their homes to offices and the city centre. Residents will live in homes planned down to the very detail to be sustainable, from recycled steel, concrete, aluminium used to build the development, to the 100 per cent renewable energy powering the city. Water is provided by a solar-powered desalination plant, all waste is converted into energy and trees along the streets irrigated with grey water from water treatment plants.

I was full of anticipation when we reached the site: It was barely the semblance of a city, but activity was buzzing, foundations were laid, as builders went about their business, oblivious to the financial crisis and credit crunch gripping the world outside of Abu Dhabi.

In fact, the current global economic crisis will not dampen Abu Dhabi's efforts to create a green sector out of nothing, Madar's CEO Dr Sultan Al Jaber assured journalists.  "We are looking beyond the current ecoomic downturn, all investements are proceeding," he said. 

Dr Al Jaber also told the conference that Abu Dhabi has set a new renewable energy target - that 7 per cent of the Emirate's total power generation capacity by 2020. It esimates that this will create a market valued at US$6-8billion dollars in the Emirate, The estimated CO2 emissions reduction is 2.4 million tonnes per year.

The Abu Dhabi government has estimated that it needs 20,000 to 22,000 MWH to meet energy demand by 2020, and that 7% is a reasonable target that can be fufilled by solar in that time frame. It also has other initiatives outside solar, such as a joint project with BP Alternative Energy and Rio Tinto on a hydrogen power plant which will begin constrction in mid-2010, he adds.

In the next few weeks, Abu Dhabi will be announcing a "comprehensive energy policy, which will incubate the renewable energy sector, to develop  an energy  portfolio that is not dependent on only oil and gas", said Dr Al Jaber.

And one gets the feeling that, whatever they say they will do, it will happen. It's a dogged determination to cut through all sorts of bureaucracy to simply get things done, an approach rather similar to Singapore's administration during its boom years. It was surprising, to say the least, to find that kind of approach in the Middle East in relation to environmental initiatives and also, admirable. 

Abu Dhabi's enthusiasm is, hopefully, infectious.

As Dr Pachauri put it yesterday at a press conference: If an oil and gas producing-nation like Abu Dhabi can invest so heavily and responsibly in renewable energy, it really paves the way for other firms to do the same.

In some statistics given to journalists, the Masdar city team quoted the US Department of Energy projection that by 2100, half the world' energy will be powered by renewable energy.

That's heck of a long way to look into the future and plan for it, but this is the kind of foresight that the world needs right now to implement the right policies and set the global economy on a sustainable growth curve.

I couldn't help but think what the public relations lady of a major oil company said to me recently" That it didn't invest in any renewable energies because it would be a "waste of money" into energies that are not as yet commercially viable. Its value is in its discipline, and the money it keeps for its shareholders, I was told.

I failed to see her reasoning.

True, most renewable energy sources might not be commercially viable today, but if we didn't invest in it now, the economic viability of it will be even further along in the future.

The way I see it, it's not wasting money, it's "throwing money at a problem" so it gets solved quicker. Abu Dhabi, one of the richest nations by any degree, has given the world some hope because it can afford to chuck money at a problem - and it's a problem that justifies it. 

The project speaks for itself. Several eco-cities have been announced in the world, but it seems Abu Dhabi's pace of building and unfazed financial commitments is unmatched by other developing eco-cities in the world. 

Dr Al Jaber's words at the summit today stuck with me: "We are doing it because we can, and because we should."

So, unlikely a destination it may be, Abu Dhabi could just be the one blazing a trail ahead for the world's next revolution. I might be too optimistic, but I hope I won't be proved wrong.