Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
from Chris Wickham:
Climate change is off the agenda in Dubai
The headline in the Gulf News English language daily reads 'UAE tops world on per capita carbon footprint'.
For a place so reliably bathed in sunlight, the Dubai property explosion seems to have generated enough construction noise to drown out the environmental debate raging elsewhere in the world.
For the first-time visitor, the scale of the global construction superlatives - The Palm, made from reclaimed land jutting out defiantly into the Gulf, the skyscrapers built in a region where there is no shortage of space - is staggering.
The amount of environmentally 'sinfull' concrete poured over the last decade is ncalculable. Billboards lauding the benefits of solar power look like a bit of an after thought.
from Tom Bergin:
Exxon envy?
A cynic might say they had seen it all before: New CEO of a big oil company, which is under pressure from shareholders, announces a wide-ranging restructuring that will make the company look like the much-admired industry leader.
Tony Hayward did it at BP in 2007 and Peter Voser, due to step up to the top job at Royal Dutch Shell Plc on July 1, did it on Wednesday.
