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29 March 2024

Dubai works on initiatives to reduce air, water pollution

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By Parag Deulgaonkar

Dubai is working on nine programmes that aim to make it the lowest carbon footprint city in the world, with current focus being on improving and expanding district cooling facilities by 2030.

“During the meeting, we developed a strategy to organise Dubai’s district-cooling sector. This aims to improve the performance of operations, and enhance the amount of investments in this promising market from 20 per cent to 40 per cent by 2030,” said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, Vice-Chairman of the Supreme Council of Energy.

In January 2016, Emirates 24|7 reported that the Supreme Council of Energy had ruled out an increase in district cooling charges.

“The Supreme Council will protect customers and definitely, there will be no increase in prices,” Al Tayer said, adding that they were planning regulations to improve efficiency of district cooling companies

Read: No increase in Dubai district cooling charges: Official

The Supreme Council of Energy is working towards the implementation of the energy demand side management strategy, which includes rules and regulations for green buildings, the rehabilitation of existing buildings, district cooling, regulations and standards for energy efficiency, reuse of wastewater for use in irrigation and technology to raise the efficiency of street lighting, and the Shams Dubai Initiative to transform Dubai into the city with the lowest carbon footprint in the world.

The above initiatives, discussed at the 39th meeting of Supreme Council of Energy, chaired by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, are designed to meet the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 that will transform the emirate into an international hub for clean energy and green economy,

The meeting also highlighted the Energy Intensity Mapping project, which focuses on making use of building and energy consumption data to find methods of analysing consumption levels, limiting Dubai’s overall energy consumption and finding solutions to limit high consumption.

“This supports the demand side management strategy to reduce overall demand by 30 per cent by 2030,” said Ahmed Buti Al Muhairbi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Energy.

The meeting reviewed the strategy of re-using water for irrigation and developing an integrated strategy for water supply. The Roads and Transport Authority, in its part, discussed the plan to convert 50 per cent of Dubai’s Taxi fleet to hybrid cabs by 2021.