It sits in the middle of a harsh, barren desert, sweltering in searing heat. It has no clean water, its sea is polluted and there is no topsoil, just a covering of sand. It is also the biggest per capita consumer of fuel, massively reliant on cars, power-hungry desalination and air-conditioning. And with all this, can the United Arab Emirate state of Abu Dhabi really succeed in building a new “green city” in the Middle East?

If you can believe visionary people like architect Gerard Evenden (his words above), from the British architectural firm Foster & Partners, yes it can. Billions of dollars are riding on the assumption

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The explosive growth of modern refrigerants, originally developed to replace ozone-destroying chemicals, could become a significant cause of global warming if they are not soon replaced by a new class of coolants, according to Dutch and U.S. researchers.

Reporting in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists said that hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) – now used in most air conditioning in cars and buildings – are a potent greenhouse gas whose heat-trapping effects currently equal less than one percent of all CO2 emissions worldwide. But booming economic growth in the developing world and the rapid spread of air conditioning mean that by 2050 HFCs could cause at least 25 percent of human-induced global warming, the study said.

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