Page 54 - Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

Frontier Technologies to Protect the Environment and Tackle Climate Change

For example, power and savings in the built-up environment contribute to the overall
carbon emission targets for the energy and water sector through demand-side management
programmes. These targets then contribute to Dubai’s yearly city targets. Another example
is the reduction realized through operational efficiency programmes in power and other
plants. Many of these improvements are the result of enhancing controls and deploying
smarter and more efficient infrastructure within these plants.’

Furthermore, Dubai’s experience shows that its IoT initiatives in this area often intersect
with its other smart sustainable city initiatives. The progressive stage of its IoT deployment,
implementation and adoption has made it easy for the city to roll up all IoT-related initiatives
(existing and planned) into a dedicated Dubai IoT Strategy. Having a distinct IoT-related
strategy will further ensure that IoT technologies are fully leveraged and utilized. The
likelihood of this is evident in the IoT strategic plan that is being implemented in four phases
until this year, 2020. Phase one saw government departments working to implement IoT
policies, which are being standardized in the second phase. The third, or ‘optimization’
phase, will see government entities fully implement the overall IoT strategy in order to realize
returns in six ‘strategic domains’ (i.e. functions): governance, management, acceleration,
deployment, monetization and security.

Such innovative use of technologies to curb global warming is important because anthropogenic
emissions of CO and other greenhouse gases, as contributed to by the global electric power sector,
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are well-known drivers of climate change. Global energy demand grew at its fastest pace in the last
decade, increasing CO emissions to a record high, according to the International Energy Agency
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(IEA)’s latest ‘Global Energy & CO Status Report’ . To achieve the UNFCCC’s goal of regulating the
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average global temperature increase to below 2°C degrees, and as close as possible to 1.5°C above
pre-industrial levels, each city must evaluate and modernize its energy, water, transport, industry,
agriculture and other systems to ensure that cumulative net emissions do not surpass one trillion
tonnes of cumulative carbon. Even so, with today’s greenhouse gas levels being the highest in 3
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million years and levels of carbon in the atmosphere being the highest in 12 million years, even if
current Paris Agreement pledges are kept, there is risk that global average temperatures in the year
2100 may still end up being at least 3°C above pre-industrial levels, which is well above the targets
to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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In taking a planned, integrative approach to reducing its carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, Dubai
has ensured that it is making tangible progress toward its city and national carbon targets – and that
it is also in a position to evaluate its progress against any other targets stipulated within the Paris
Agreement, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 and the Connect 2020 Agenda. The transition to
a fully energy-efficient economy is an immediate priority for all cities but will take time. This transition
can entail fundamental changes in a city’s economy structure and in its technical infrastructure, as
well as changes in the regulatory framework, in the mobilization and coordination of all federal and
regional executive authorities, in the consumption structure, and in behavioural stereotypes. 153

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