Assessments of primary energy consumption and its environmental consequences in the United Arab Emirates

Since its independence in 1971, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took a giant leap toward achieving a high economic growth and urbanization. Consequently, primary energy consumption namely oil and natural gas has quadrupled in the past two decades such that energy consumption per capita was the highest in the world and the resulting carbon emission per capita was at least twice and 10 times higher than the developed countries and the world's annual average emission, respectively. In this paper, assessments of the UAE's primary energy consumption and its environmental consequences in the past two decades are carried out. The study covered major parameters such as urbanization, population and economic growths that influenced the country's energy consumption. Furthermore, the study suggested key remedial measures that could be deployed by local and national organizations in the country in order to consolidate their positions in mitigating country's primary energy consumption and environmental emissions. The proposed remedial measures are namely enhancing public awareness, achieving a lower population growth rate, maintaining a high economic growth rate, utilizing renewable energy resources, producing and utilizing hydrogen energy, implementing carbon sequestration technology and deploying energy management programs in various sectors. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.