Elements that point to a tipping climate system

Anthropogenic forcing could push the Earth’s climate system past critical thresholds, so that important components may “tip” into qualitatively different modes of operation. In the magazine “Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences” an international team of researchers describes, where small changes can have large long-term consequences on human and ecological systems.

“Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change,“ the researchers around Timothy Lenton from the British University of East Anglia in Norwich and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research report. Global change may appear to be a slow and gradual process on human scales. However, in some regions anthropogenic forcing on the climate system could kick start abrupt and potentially irreversible changes. For these sub-systems of the Earth system the researchers introduce the term “tipping element”.

Drawing on a workshop of 36 leading climate scientists in October 2005 at the British Embassy, Berlin, Germany, a further elicitation of 52 experts in the field, and a review of the pertinent literature, the authors compiled a short-list of nine potential tipping elements. These tipping elements are ranked as the most policy-relevant and require consideration in international climate politics.

Arctic sea-ice and the Greenland Ice Sheet are regarded as the most sensitive tipping elements with the smallest uncertainty. Scientists expect ice cover to dwindle due to global warming. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is probably less sensitive as a tipping element, but projections of its future behavior have large uncertainty. This also applies to the Amazon rainforest and Boreal forests, the El Niño phenomenon, and the West African monsoon. “These tipping elements are candidates for surprising society by exhibiting a nearby tipping point,” the authors state in the article that is published in PNAS Online Early Edition. The archetypal example of a tipping element, the Atlantic thermohaline circulation, could undergo a large abrupt transition with up to ten percent probability within this century, according to the UN climate report from 2007.

Given the scale of potentially dramatic impacts from tipping elements the researchers anticipate stronger mitigation. Concepts for adaptation that go beyond current incremental approaches are also necessary. In addition, “a rigorous study of potential tipping elements in human socio-economic systems would also be welcome,” the researchers write. Some models suggest there are tipping points to be passed for the transition to a low carbon society.

Highly sensitive tipping elements, smallest uncertainty:

Greenland Ice Sheet - Warming over the ice sheet accelerates ice loss from outlet glaciers and lowers ice altitude at the periphery, which further increases surface temperature and ablation. The exact tipping point for disintegration of the ice sheet is unknown, since current models cannot capture the observed dynamic deglaciation processes accurately. But in a worst case scenario local warming of more than three degrees Celsius could cause the ice sheet to disappear within 300 years. This would result in a rise of sea level of up to seven meters.

Arctic sea-ice - As sea-ice melts, it exposes a much darker ocean surface, which absorbs more radiation than white sea-ice so that the warming is amplified. This causes more rapid melting in summer and decreases ice formation in winter. Over the last 16 years ice cover during summer declined markedly. The critical threshold global mean warming may be between 0.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, but could already have been passed. One model shows a nonlinear transition to a potential new stable state with no arctic sea-ice during summer within a few decades.

Intermediately sensitive tipping elements, large uncertainty:

West Antarctic Ice Sheet - Recent gravity measurements suggest that the ice sheet is losing mass. Since most of the ice sheet is grounded below sea level the intrusion of ocean water could destabilize it. The tipping point could be reached with a local warming of five to eight degrees Celsius in summer. A worst case scenario shows the ice sheet could collapse within 300 years, possibly raising sea level by as much as five meters.

Boreal forest - The northern forests exhibit a complex interplay between tree physiology, permafrost and fire. A global mean warming of three to five degrees Celsius could lead to large-scale dieback of the boreal forests within 50 years. Under climate change the trees would be exposed to increasing water stress and peak summer heat and would be more vulnerable to diseases. Temperate tree species will remain excluded due to frost damage in still very cold winters.

Amazon rainforest - Global warming and deforestation will probably reduce rainfall in the region by up to 30 percent. Lengthening of the dry season, and increases in summer temperatures would make it difficult for the forest to re-establish. Models project dieback of the Amazon rainforest to occur under three to four degrees Celsius global warming within fifty years. Even land-use change alone could potentially bring forest cover to a critical threshold.

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – The variability of this ocean-atmosphere mode is controlled by the layering of water of different temperatures in the Pacific Ocean and the temperature gradient across the equator. During the globally three degrees Celsius warmer early Pliocene ENSO may have been suppressed in favor of persistent El Niño or La Niña conditions. In response to a warmer stabilized climate, the most realistic models simulate increased El Niño amplitude with no clear change in frequency.

Sahara/Sahel- and West African monsoon - The amount of rainfall is closely related to vegetation climate feedback and sea surface temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean. Greenhouse gas forcing is expected to increase Sahel rainfall. But a global mean warming of three to five degrees Celsius could cause a collapse of the West African monsoon. This could lead either to drying of the Sahel or to wetting due to increased inflow from the West. A third scenario shows a possible doubling of anomalously dry years by the end of the century.

Indian summer monsoon - The monsoon circulation is driven by a land-to-ocean pressure gradient. Greenhouse warming tends to strengthen the monsoon since warmer air can carry more water. Air pollution and land-use that increases the reflection of sunlight tend to weaken it. The Indian summer monsoon could become erratic and in the worst case start to chaotically change between an active and a weak phase within a few years.

Lowly sensitive tipping elements, intermediate uncertainty:

Atlantic thermohaline circulation - The circulation of sea currents in the Atlantic Ocean is driven by seawater that flows to the North Atlantic, cools and sinks at high latitudes. If the inflow of freshwater increases, e.g. from rivers or melting glaciers, or the seawater is warmed, its density would decrease. A global mean warming of three to five degrees Celsius could push the element past the tipping point so that deep water formation stops. Under these conditions the North Atlantic current would be disrupted, sea level in the North Atlantic region would rise and the tropical rain belt would be shifted.

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Source - Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

The sixth mass extinction to affect life on Earth.

All the creatures we share the Earth with are important in some way, however unprepossessing or insignificant they may appear. They and we are all part of the web of life.

From the dawn of time, extinction has usually progressed at what scientists call a natural or background rate. Today the tempo is far faster.

Many scientists believe this is the sixth great wave - the sixth mass extinction to affect life on Earth.

We were not here for any of the previous mass extinctions, but this time our sheer preponderance is driving the slide to oblivion.

We have more than doubled our numbers in half a century, and that is the most obvious reason why there is less room for any other species.

We are taking their living room to grow our food, their food to feed ourselves. We are exploiting them, trading in them, squeezing them to the margins of existence - and beyond.

Often the choice is hard: conserve a species or feed a community, tourists' dollars or turtles' nests.

In 2003 the World Conservation Union's Red List said more than 12,000 species (out of 40,000 assessed) faced some extinction risk, including:

• one bird in eight
• 13% of the world's flowering plants
• a quarter of all mammals.

That gives you a ballpark figure. Science has described 1.75 million species, some experts estimate that there may be 13 or 14 million in the world in total - but until they are catalogued, nobody knows.

Our pillage of the natural world has been likened to burning down the medieval libraries of Europe, before we had even bothered to catalogue their contents.

Many species keep us alive, purifying water, fixing nitrogen, recycling nutrients and waste, and pollinating crops.

Plants and bacteria carry out photosynthesis, which produces the oxygen we breathe. Trees absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas given off by human activities.

Pandas and microbes

Some years ago, when the global annual gross product was about $18 trillion, US researchers calculated the value of the goods and services provided by the Earth to the world economy: $33 trillion.

Tropical cone snails contain toxins which show promise for treating some forms of cancer and heart irregularities. One toxin may be a thousand times more potent than morphine for pain relief.

But millions of cone snails are now killed annually for their shells, and their habitats are under pressure.

That is the argument for utility. But the creatures we can see, and those we can use directly, are just the start of the story.

Lord May, president of the Royal Society (the UK's national academy of sciences), has said: "Most conservation effort goes into birds and mammals - creatures like the panda, a dim, dead-end animal that was probably on the way out anyway.

"Yet arguably it's the little things that run the world, things like soil microbes. They're the least-known species of all."

Complex network

And we continue to tug at the loose threads of the web of life, thinking we can split it into its separate parts.

Brazil nuts are a lucrative harvest in the Amazon. But an experiment to produce them in plantations failed, because the trees bear a good crop in the forest, but are barren in isolation.

We are not removing individual species from the Amazon: we are destroying the entire forest.

US researchers estimate that by 2020 less than 5% of it will remain in pristine condition.

Within 15 years, about a fifth of central Africa's forests will have gone, by one estimate. And the forests of Indonesia are in headlong retreat.

Some species are bucking the trend towards extinction. In 1953 there were about 2.5bn people: today there are 6bn.

Ensuring other species keep their living space is not sentimental. It is the only way we shall survive.

Extinction, whatever Steven Spielberg says, really is for ever.

The web is unravelling...

Planet Under Pressure -- BBC News

World fells trees at ‘alarming’ rate, experts say

Scientists say global deforestation will feed global warming

ABO EBAM, Nigeria - In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."

The December U.N. session in Bali may have been a turning point, endorsing negotiations in which nations may fashion the first global financial plan for compensating developing countries for preserving their forests.

The latest data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) helped spur delegates to action.

"Deforestation continues at an alarming rate of about 13 million hectares (32 million acres) a year," the U.N. body said in its latest "State of the World's Forests" report.

Because northern forests remain essentially stable, that means 50,000 square miles of tropical forest are being cleared every 12 months _ equivalent to one Mississippi or more than half a Britain. The lumber and fuelwood removed in the tropics alone would fill more than 1,000 Empire State Buildings, FAO figures show.

Although South America loses slightly more acreage than Africa, the rate of loss is higher here _ almost 1 percent of African forests gone each year. In 2000-2005, the continent lost 10 million acres a year, including big chunks of forest in Sudan, Zambia and Tanzania, up from 9 million a decade earlier, the FAO reports.

Across the tropics the causes can be starkly different.

The Amazon and other South American forests are usually burned for cattle grazing or industrial-scale soybean farming. In Indonesia and elsewhere in southeast Asia, island forests are being cut or burned to make way for giant plantations of palm, whose oil is used in food processing, cosmetics and other products.

In Africa, by contrast, it's individuals hacking out plots for small-scale farming.

Here in Nigeria's southeastern Cross Rivers State, home to one of the largest remaining tropical forests in Africa, people from surrounding villages of huts and cement-block homes go to the forest each day to work their pineapple and cocoa farms. They see no other way of earning money to feed their families.

"The developed countries want us to keep the forests, since the air we breathe is for all of us, rich countries and poor countries," said Ogar Assam Effa, 54, a tree plantation director and member of the state conservation board.

"But we breathe the air, and our bellies are empty. Can air give you protein? Can air give you carbohydrates?" he asked. "It would be easy to convince people to stop clearing the forest if there was an alternative."

The state, which long ago banned industrial logging, is trying to offer alternatives.

to the source

Humans Force Earth into New Geologic Epoch

Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun.

Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene.

Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:

Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.

Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.

Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

The idea, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, has gained steam with two new scientific papers that call for official recognition of the shift.

Vivid metaphor

In the February issue of the journal GSA Today, a publication of the Geological Society of America, Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams of the University of Leicester and colleagues at the Geological Society of London argue that industrialization has wrought changes that usher in a new epoch.

Scientists of the future will have no trouble deciding if the proposal was timely. All they'll need to do is dig into the planet and examine its stratigraphic layers, which reveal a chronology of the changing conditions that existed as each layer is created. Layers can reflect volcanic upheaval, ice ages or mass extinctions.

"Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene — currently a vivid yet informal metaphor of global environmental change — as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization by international discussion," Zalasiewicz's team writes.

The paper calls on the International Commission on Stratigraphy to officially mark the shift.
In a separate paper last month in the journal Soil Science, researchers focused on soil infertility alone as a reason to dub this the Anthropocene Age. (The term "age" is sometimes used interchangeably with "epoch" or to indicate a transition period between epochs.)

As an example, they said, agriculture in Africa "has so degraded regional soil fertility that the economic development of whole nations will be diminished without drastic improvements of soil management."

"With more than half of all soils on Earth now being cultivated for food crops, grazed, or periodically logged for wood, how to sustain Earth’s soils is becoming a major scientific and policy issue," said Duke University soil scientist Daniel Richter.

Richter's work was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Origin of a term

Earth's 4.5-billion-year history is divided into major eras, then periods and finally epochs. The Holocene Epoch began after the last Ice Age.

As early as the late 1800s scientists were writing about man's wholesale impact on the planet and the possibility of an "anthropozoic era" having begun, according to Crutzen, who is credited with coining the term Anthropocene (anthropo = human; cene = new) back in 2000. That year, Crutzen and a colleague wrote in the scientific newsletter International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme about some of the dramatic changes:

"Urbanization has ... increased tenfold in the past century. In a few generations mankind is exhausting the fossil fuels that were generated over several hundred million years."

Up to half of Earth's land has been transformed by human activity, wrote Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer of the University of Michigan. They also noted the dramatic increase in greenhouse gases and other chemicals and pollutants humans have introduced into global ecosystems.
The epochal idea has merit, according to geologist Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University.

"In land, water, air, ice, and ecosystems, the human impact is clear, large, and growing,"Alley told ScienceNow, an online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "A geologist from the far distant future almost surely would draw a new line, and begin using a new name, where and when our impacts show up."

original article

Hundreds of Scientists Call on Congress to Help Wildlife Survive Global Warming

January 29, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC – More than 600 prominent scientists from across the United States are calling on Congress to pass legislation that will curb America’s global warming pollution and help protect wildlife and other natural resources threatened by global warming. Spearheaded by some of America’s greatest scientific minds, including Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, Thomas Lovejoy, Paul Ehrlich and Camille Parmesan, the scientists have sent a letter to Congress urging action.

“The science is irrefutable not only about the reality of climate change, but also that plant and animal species are already being harmed by it,” said Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, renowned conservation biologist and president of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment. “Alarming effects are already being observed in nature from mountaintops to the oceans, and from the equator to the polar regions. We have the choice to allow these effects to intensify or to move to avoid the more disastrous consequences for life on earth.”

“The precarious status of polar bears and their melting sea ice habitat in the Arctic is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Dan Svedarsky, president of The Wildlife Society, on behalf of its over 8,000 professional wildlife biologists. “It’s not just polar bears – wildlife across America are being impacted by global warming, including birds, butterflies, fish and mammals.”

“The science is clear that without major action to both reduce global warming pollution and to help wildlife survive global warming, species will suffer rapidly increasing extinction rates,” said Jeff Price, one of the authors of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (2007). “It is not too late, but we must take action now.”

The U.S. Senate is currently considering legislation that would begin to take the urgent actions these scientists say are necessary. The Climate Security Act, introduced in 2007 by Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA), creates a market-based system that cuts global warming pollution and helps communities address the impacts of climate change.

“Global warming is an unprecedented challenge for wildlife, adding a host of new threats such as thawing permafrost, disappearing mountain snow pack, and the warming of rivers, lakes and estuaries,” said John Kostyack, executive director of wildlife and global warming at the National Wildlife Federation. “Senators Lieberman and Warner recognize the gravity of the threat and the necessity of timely and effective action. The Climate Security Act provides the best hope for saving wildlife at risk of extinction and for conserving ecosystems that are essential for both wildlife and people.”

Under the bill’s carbon cap-and-trade system, global warming pollution would be capped at levels that enable the U.S. to achieve 2 percent annual reductions through the middle of the century. Permits, also known as allowances, to release global warming pollution would be auctioned annually. Revenues from these auctions would be dedicated to various public purposes, including conservation of wildlife and other natural resources at risk from global warming.

During the first 19 years of the program the bill would raise an estimated $175 billion in revenue for wildlife and natural resource conservation. With this critically needed funding, managers of wildlife, land and water would be able to effectively utilize a number of tools at their disposal to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems harmed by global warming. The bill would provide substantial investments to state and federal agencies to reduce non-climate stressors on ecosystems, prevent and control invasive species, and protect coastal wetlands and address the impacts of sea level rise, all of which will help wildlife survive the pressures of global warming.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points to droughts, wildfires, flooding and intensified storms as consequences of unchecked global warming. Both people and wildlife are at risk from these impacts. Investing in the conservation of wildlife and natural resources will directly benefit Americans whose jobs, health and quality of life depend on maintaining natural ecosystems. The letter emphasizes that “global warming represents, by far, the greatest threat ever posed to the planet’s living resources, which provide the foundation of our economy and quality of life.”

“Salmon and trout are among our most vulnerable species and their protection in the face of a rapidly changing climate demands strong actions,” said Helen Neville, research scientist with Trout Unlimited. “Trout Unlimited urges Congress to enact legislation reducing global warming pollution and funding conservation of fish and wildlife threatened by global warming.”

The signers are hoping to convey to Congress “our sense of urgency. Global warming is already causing serious damage and disruptions to wildlife and ecosystems, and reliable projections call for significant additional damage and disruptions. To fulfill the nation’s longstanding commitment to conserving abundant wildlife and healthy ecosystems for future generations, Congress must craft legislation that greatly reduces global warming pollution and generates substantial dedicated funding to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems harmed by global warming.”

The Lieberman-Warner bill is expected to come to a full Senate vote within the next several months.

See the full list of signers


click to download and view scientists letter


Source: National Wildlife Federation



original article

MASS - Commonwealth Solar Program is Open!

Massachusetts Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Ian Bowles has announced that Commonwealth Solar, the state's new program of rebates to encourage the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) power is now accepting applications from businesses and homeowners looking to reduce the cost of putting solar panels on their roofs.

Announced in December, the program, which makes use of existing renewable energy funds, is expected to result in the installation of more than 27 megawatts (MW) of solar power capacity over the next four years. Commonwealth Solar is part of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's pledge to increase installed solar power from 5 MW today to 250 MW by 2017. This was made in April in connection with Evergreen Solar Inc.'s commitment to locate its first full-scale U.S. manufacturing facility in Massachusetts.

"Commonwealth Solar is open for business, and that's good news for the economy and the environment," Bowles said. "Solar energy is a key component of the clean energy economy we are developing here in Massachusetts, and a rebate is the most efficient, cost-effective way we can make solar power more affordable. Now is the time for businesses and homeowners to find out what Commonwealth Solar has to offer.

"Information on how to get a Commonwealth Solar rebate can be found at http://www.commonwealthsolar.org/.

the source

Pumping pollution beneath the desert

World's oil companies will be carefully watching Abu Dhabi's plan to capture carbon emissions underground

Abu Dhabi is planning to construct the world's largest carbon capture and storage project, as part of the oil-rich emirate's $15-billion (U.S.) bid to become a leader in clean technology and renewable energy.

While countries around the world are wrestling with the daunting economics of carbon sequestration, Abu Dhabi is planning to invest up to $4-billion to capture as much as 15 million tonnes of CO{-2} annually from eight industrial plants, and then inject the gas underground to enhance oil recovery.

Once injected, it is expected that the greenhouse gas will remain sequestered underground indefinitely.

The effort is being spearheaded by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., a state-owned company that has been endowed with $15-billion to spend on carbon management programs, alternative power sources such as solar and energy-from-waste, and a model, zero-emission city that would be powered by renewables.

It is all part of the emirate's effort to invest its vast and growing oil wealth in new technologies that will broaden its economic base, while meeting international commitments to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Though other countries have individual carbon capture projects - including one run by EnCana Corp. in southern Saskatchewan that is the world's largest - none has moved beyond single, isolated endeavours. As a result, oil companies from around the world will be watching the effort to determine whether a carbon-capture network can be economically viable.

In Alberta, where massive oil sands development is raising fears about rapidly rising greenhouse gas emissions, the federal and provincial governments have indicated a willingness to help finance a pipeline that would deliver CO{-2} to oil fields for use in enhanced recovery. However, industry officials say the gathering system represents a small fraction of the cost - the biggest expense is the effort to capture carbon dioxide from the emissions stream.

With Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. doing feasibility work, the Abu Dhabi project - known as Masdar - has identified eight sources of CO{-2}, including power plants and refineries. It initially plans to proceed with the "low hanging fruit" from four of them, said Sam Nader, the project's director of carbon management.

Masdar, established in 2006, is working with state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. - which produces virtually all of the emirate's 2.5 million barrels of crude per day - to identify oil fields that would benefit from CO{-2} injection to enhance oil recovery.

"This is a win-win situation for us," Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview from Abu Dhabi. "We get the environmental benefit from capturing the CO{-2}, and also enhance oil production."

As one of the world's most prolific oil producers, Abu Dhabi is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases - third in the world on a per capita basis after neighbours Qatar and Kuwait.

In addition to the revenue generated by replacing the natural gas that is currently used to enhance oil production, the Abu Dhabi company will profit from the sale of emission credits generated by the reduction in greenhouse gases.

SNC-Lavalin principal consultant Doug Macdonald presented the preliminary results of the feasibility study at an energy futures conference hosted by Abu Dhabi last week. He told the conference that up to six of the eight projects can be implemented in a "relatively short" amount of time, Bloomberg News reported.

"Our mandate is to act as an agent for promoting sustainability in this part of the world," Mr. Nader said. "The Middle East has been a laggard in terms of adapting to a carbon-constrained world, but we believe we can catch up."

As part of that overall $15-billion announced last week, Masdar Clean Tech Fund is investing $250-million in renewable energy and other clean technologies that would be appropriate for the desert conditions of the region.

Masdar fund manager Alex O'Cinneide said in an interview that he is looking for a commercial rate of return on the investments in industries like solar and energy-from-waste. But at the same time, the company is investing in technology "that can be scaled up for Masdar to deploy in the region."

Those technologies will then be featured in Masdar City, a planned six-kilometre-square development that the emirate unveiled last week. It will feature zero greenhouse gas emissions, zero waste, with no cars allowed. The emirate is also partnering with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to establish in the city a graduate level program in clean-tech engineering.

The urban centre, with a projected population of 47,500, will include an electric light-rail system, a solar-power plant and a desalination plant, with wastewater being used to grow plants for biofuels. Construction is to begin next month, and residents are to begin moving in next year.
Mr. O'Cinneide said the Abu Dhabi commitment is unprecedented for any government.

"There are plenty of funds our size," he said. "But from an all-encompassing perspective - building cities, building universities, building a manufacturing base - there's nothing like it," he said.

the source