Climate change is here. As our attention shifts to mitigation efforts, might advanced technologies modeled by the UAE provide a solution?

By Xische Editorial, August 18, 2021

A sweeping new United Nations-sponsored report confirmed what most people have known for quite some time: the planet is getting warmer and efforts to curtail the temperature change are falling short. Critically, the report determined that the Earth’s temperature will warm by 1.5°C sometime between 2030 and 2035. This figure is a key benchmark for the Paris Agreement on climate change and once reached will have disastrous effects on myriad aspects of our climate. It’s not about warning that change is coming, the report confirmed that we need to redouble efforts at finding solutions for the problem of climate change.  

The IPCC report found that only extremely rapid, steep, and sustained greenhouse gas emissions cuts (in the ballpark of net negative values) could avoid the 1.5°C target over the long term. At this stage that would mean that advanced economies would have to essentially pause their own economic growth targets. It’s just not practical to think there will be enough goodwill in advanced economies to stop growth in order to save the planet. Instead, there needs to be a new focus on finding solutions that help the climate and encourage economic growth. 

Let’s consider the issue of growth and climate change more deeply.  Can we have prosperity without economic growth? This is the core question posed by the degrowth movement, a once niche group that has been growing in visibility thanks to the climate crisis. Their argument is straightforward in that we need limits on consumption in order to curb climate change but the reality is that wealthy countries will never buy into anything close to regrowth. 

Branko Milanovic, the economist scholar, recently argued that for degrowth to work, 86% of people living in the richer world would need to see their standard of living decline for a decade or more. This would be politically unacceptable. Following this the writer Jason Hickel published an essay in Nature exploring how climate mitigation strategies depend on technological advancements that will facilitate massive emissions decline while maintaining the growth goals of advanced economics. 

Scientists are sceptical that such a scenario can be realised. As such, Hickel recommends that high-income nations adopt post-growth policies that will allow them to achieve strong social outcomes without growth. This creates space to scale down excess production, thus reducing energy demand and enabling a rapid transition to renewables. It’s not clear this can resolve the problem but the line of thinking reveals where solutions might come from. 

Growth, degrowth, and climate change are especially important for Gulf countries. It’s unlikely that we will see real curbs on consumption across the region because the economies of the Gulf are rapidly growing along with other emerging markets. Consumption is critical for growth. Instead, the UAE is showing that technological prowess can fill this void. 

As one of the world’s leading oil producers, it might seem ironic that the UAE (and other Gulf countries) are at the forefront of finding solutions to the problem of climate change. By investing in several initiatives from agricultural technology to renewable energy, the UAE is demonstrating how an economy built on hydrocarbons can shift to renewables and continue to grow. 

This month, Dubai announced that clean renewable energy will account for about 13 percent of the Emirate’s power before the end of 2021. Dubai is attracting massive amounts of investment to double these efforts and make a swift transition to renewable energy in the coming years. The National reports that Abu Dhabi is also developing more renewable energy projects, including the world's largest solar plant at Al Dhafra with a total capacity of two gigawatts, as part of the UAE's efforts to increase clean energy capacity.

A warming planet will hit the Gulf region especially hard so it makes sense that action is being taken right away to mitigate the effects of climate change. The bottom line is that global cooperation is needed now more than ever on climate change and regions hit particularly hard like the Gulf will take the lead in finding solutions for a safe future.