A Green Economy in the UAE
The green economy is a strategy aimed to reduce environmental risks and ecological shortages, providing sustainable development and economic growth without negative consequences for the environment. Sustainable business practices become significantly important due to an increase of the environmental awareness and lead to the green economy’s emergence as the new economic engine for many countries (Kahle & Gurel-Atay, 2014). The green economy includes two main factors, such as adopting sustainable business practices in result of orientation on social marketing and complying with government regulations, and promotion of sustainable consumption. The development of green economy in Arab Gulf Countries and the Arab Mediterranean countries is related to policy development aimed to support energy efficiency and to diversify the energy sources (Ministry of Energy - Electricity Affairs, 2012).
The Dubai Sustainable Energy Model (DSEM) is the regulatory program and commercial terms designed in order to attract foreign investors to achieve the low electricity cost. This framework became a starting point of the measures targeted at the diversification of Dubai’s energy sources and the encouragement of job creation, transfer of knowledge and improved risk management by public private partnerships. The DSEM includes the review of water and electricity tariff structure, increasing the role of solar as the source of energy, and transformation of consumer conduct (Diab, 2016).
The development of renewable energy can contribute to job creation and economic diversification. Approximately 47 percent of the domestic products in the Gulf Countries are produced by the gas and oil sector, while it employs not more than one percent of workers. By increasing dependence on the sources of renewable energy, the economy can be diversified and human capital can be developed in order to maintain a sustainable economy based on knowledge and innovations. Establishment of the sector of renewable energy and development of green technologies can provide effective diversification of the economy and decrease the dependence on the foreign technologies. In this case, the work on the development of new technologies will be committed locally, and it will create large opportunities for exporting the results of this work (Ministry of Energy - Electricity Affairs, 2012).
The industry of renewable energy in most of oil producing countries suffers from non- or low-funding. The countries of the Middle East and North Africa enjoy appropriate geographic and climatic conditions having the largest potential for the production of solar energy. Due to producing of renewable energy, the greenhouse gases can be reduced and the climate change can be faced, as well as other environmental problems can be solved. By diversification of the energy source and support of the renewable energy, the oil-producing countries can promote and maintain their leading role in the global energy sector (Ministry of Energy - Electricity Affairs, 2012).
The maintenance of green economy became a crucial factor for sustainable development of the Gulf Countries. For this reason, energy efficiency and demand reduction became a top priority of Dubai’s policy. Due to the green economy strategy aimed to encourage green growth, …
