http://www.energyefficiencynews.com/articles/i/5583/?cid=3

 

The Gulf state of Qatar says it is right the choice to host the United Nations (UN) climate change summit in Doha this week.

 

The first OPEC nation to hold the UNFCCC COP 18/CMP8 conference, Qatar has the highest carbon emissions per capita in the world and is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

But as coastal nation, it is one of the ten countries potentially most affected by rising sea levels and shifting global weather conditions as it is heavily reliant on trade for food and other necessities.

Although the state has no specific targets for emissions cuts, Qatar says it is the "perfect platform" for the conference because of its ability, like many other North African and Middle Eastern nations, to deal with desertification, drought and extreme weather events.

Many of the techniques developed by desert people of the centuries could be adapted to help other nations deal with climate change today, say the hosts.

This accumulated knowledge has been largely missing from UN climate change negotiations, say the Qatari authorities, in the "mistaken belief" that "dry lands are waste lands" when it comes to sustainability.

"Dry lands have very important assets like mangroves, for example, which are capable of storing far more carbon than forests over the same surface area," says Hala Kilani, outreach and public engagement director at COP18/CMP8. "Desert lands have always had to cope with droughts and now with climate change droughts are happening in parts of the world that have never experienced them before."

And while the focus of the world is on the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has taken the opportunity to announce that it is starting work on its first major solar farm as part of plans to generate a third of its electricity from solar power within 20 years.