Abu Dhabi hosted its second World Future Energy Summit earlier this week, with some 16,000 business leaders, green-tech researchers and politicians bravely forgoing northern winters for the Persian Gulf state's subtropic sun. Judging by news reports, attendees forgot the world economy is supposed to be in a panicky, keep-your-money-in-your-mattress mode, and instead engaged in a three-day fiesta of deal-making and bold renewable energy announcements. Here's a run-down:
* The host city pledged that 7 percent of its energy would come from renewable sources by 2020, up from zero today.
* GE announced plans for its Ecomagination Centre, an R&D showcase of wind, solar, water purification, and energy efficiency technologies. It will be built in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi's car-free, carbon-neutral metropolis powered completely by renewable energy. The capital of the United Arab Emirates used the summit to show off the $22 billion Masdar project, which is under construction.
* Hometown English-language newspaper The National framed the summit as a coming-out party for solar power, saying the industry has been growing "much faster than official institutions and the public think":
Long dismissed as a peripheral contributor to the world's energy matrix, technologies harnessing the sun's energy are now benefitting from billions of dollars of investment, which has rapidly increased their efficiency and cut their costs.
That optimism doesn't jibe with dire reports of the U.S. solar industry faltering amid the credit crisis and declining oil prices. But consider that the Emirates have the distinct advantages of year-round sun and the crazy amounts of oil money that enable underwater hotels, man-made islands and a $63,000 per capita income in Abu Dhabi. A $15 billion solar investment from the Masdar initiative won't hurt the local industry either.
* Several news outlets noted the unlikelihood of the oil-rich emirates becoming renewable energy leaders, including Time's Bryan Walsh, who sees it as a logical diversification strategy:
In the long term, developers of renewables know they'll win. Climate change aside, the simple fact that energy demand will continue growing rapidly once the downturn has ended means that new supplies will be needed. And no one including oil giants of the Middle East believe that fossil fuels alone will meet that gap.