Scary figures of pollution 'enough to start action'

Dubai: Tools used to measure environmental damage of a country have come under scrutiny after it was revealed that the UAE's impact on ecology is the highest per capita in the world.

If the world population had consumption levels similar to that of UAE residents, nearly six earths would be needed to cope with the demand, assessments said.

Speaking at the monthly Emirates Environment Group community lecture last week in Dubai, Justin Kitzes, national accounts programme manager for US-based non-governmental organisation Global Footprint Network, said: "If everybody on the planet consumed at the same rate as UAE residents, 5.8 earths would be needed ... This is scary enough for us to start acting but not scary enough for us to give up."

The ecology footprint tool used to reach this conclusion is an accounting tool that makes sustainability measurements to calculate the goods and services provided by the planet, assess human demand and evaluate whether the planet can renew or replenish them.

The United States and China are global leaders in development and high footprint, the only country which maintains the balance is Cuba, said Kitzes.

"It is important to look at the footprint of a country as well as per person. In the United States, the construction was done over hundreds of years and the polluting emissions were released gradually over time, in the UAE the construction is all at once and so are the emissions," said Fritzes.

A senior environment researcher from the Gulf Research Centre, however, said it is not just to compare the UAE to other countries that have more natural resources.

Dr Mohammad A Rauof said he was not surprised by the results. A better way to present them would be in monetary terms, he said.
"The calculation is not fair in my opinion because the UAE has no natural resources like water resources or forests like in Germany," said Rauof.

"Counting damage through billions of hectares is not efficient; damage should be valued not only ecologically but in monetary terms. The ecological footprint is not standardised and adjustments need to be made," said Dr Rauof.

To tackle the lack of environmental statistics in the UAE, the Gulf Research Centre is planning to conduct a survey called Gulf Green 2020, which will assess the state of the environment by 2020.