With World Ocean Day on June 8, we see how acid, over-fishing and five-star hotels have hurt Dubai’s sea
It’s World Ocean Day on June 8. And while it’s a date to celebrate the value of the sea, it also seems like a good time to face up to the problems we’ve caused and have a think about how we can make things better. Read on and you’ll agree.
On acid
The oceans are becoming more acidic thanks to that old chestnut, excessive carbon dioxide emissions. So dire are the levels of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere that it’s changing the chemistry of the ocean, and the increased acidity is having ‘a major adverse effect on corals and other marine life’, according to the boffs at international environmental agency Oceana.
The sea around the UAE is becoming increasingly acidic, damaging coral in particular. This is a worry, because the loss of coral species has a negative impact on the ocean, disrupting ecosystems and even making things difficult for ocean-dependent economies, such as fishing (local economies near major coral reefs tend to benefit from a wealth of fish and octopus as a food source). The acidity also poses a significant threat to creatures such as clams, marine plankton and oysters (bad news for all those fancy pants Dubai restaurants, then).
Oceana tells Time Out: ‘The only way to stop ocean acidification is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the oceans.’ And the only way to do this is to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) being released into the atmosphere.
Dubai is a considerable offender when it comes to CO2 emissions. UAE hotels alone produce double the CO2 emissions of their European counterparts, as a study by Dubai-based facilities management company Farnek Avireal discovered last year. A five-star hotel in Dubai produces 6,500 tonnes of CO2 annually, whereas a similar hotel in Europe produces only 3,000 tonnes a year. And you know how many five-star hotels there are in Dubai.
However, a target of 20 per cent reduction in CO2 from hotels has been set by Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM), which a number of Dubai’s leading hotels have committed to meet, including Emirates Towers, Madinat Jumeirah, Mövenpick and The One&Only Royal Mirage. Fingers crossed that will be enough.
Dubai’s desalination plants are also contributing to the mass amounts of CO2 being belched into the air. Because there is little surface or underground water available in the UAE, salt water has to be turned into drinking water via the process of desalination. But the process releases large amounts of CO2, and the Middle East is said to account for 75 per cent of the world’s water desalination.
…
Time Out Dubai, 1 June 2009. Full article.
