No abstract

With sustainability at the heart of Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup 2022™, Qatar has set a track to achieve carbon neutrality, committing to deliver the first‐ever carbon neutral mega event in the world. Achieving these goals require offsetting carbon emissions through quality projects within and outside the state. Tree nurseries with stress‐tolerant variants play a significant role in cutting the excess emissions from Qatar 2022, thereby supporting long‐term sustainable development. This research presents a novel approach to offset carbon emissions utilizing the carbon sequestration potential of trees planted in a tree nursery project in Qatar. The i‐Tree assessment tool and a well‐established US database are used in this regard to undertake a correlation climatic condition analysis between Doha and five locations in the United States with similar demographics as the State of Qatar. The tree nursery data along with water consumption, fertilizer use, and power consumption, were fed as the inputs to the assessment tool. The assessments were carried out considering different irrigation methods for trees and shrubs, treated sewage water with a significant amount of organic fertilizer, and desalinated water. The analysis showed a net‐carbon‐emission reduction equal to 23.482 t CO2‐eqv/year using the treated sewage water. The tree nursery project has a carbon reduction potential of 21.902% compared to the maximum carbon sequestration potential of 30.39 kg/CO2‐eqv/tree/year, when using treated sewage water and a mix of the specific fertilizer. However, the use of desalinated water holds a negative impact on the carbon balance to such a level that the introduction of trees in Middle Eastern may not positively affect climate change mitigation. It was also found that the amount of carbon footprint reduction after the FIFA World Cup 2022 is expected to increase steadily during the average life expectancy of the trees assessed, which were evaluated to be circa 135 years. The results presented support urban planners in proposing integrated sustainability planning strategies and policies. These strategies can initiate projects such as nurseries, parks, and open space areas to reduce carbon footprints, improve the city's social and economic aspects, and preserve the post‐event legacy of mega‐sporting events like the World Cup and Olympic Sports.

The harsh climate of GCC, rapid industrialisation and energy subsidies have led to a per capita energy consumption that is much higher than the larger economies of the US, China and the EU. The situation is likely to become worse as more electricity, desalinated water and gasoline will be needed to fuel the ambitious national plans for industrial and economic growth. Localised shortages of natural gas already exist, and the long term viability of a fossil fuel based economy is being discussed at different levels of decision making. Therefore, in order to diversify their energy mix, increase energy security, and save the national fossil fuel sources for export, the GCC countries are setting up targets for deployment of renewable energy (RE). The objective of this paper is to analyse the impacts of these targets on the CO2 emissions and fuel savings. The paper addresses commitments of the GCC governments to their diversification targets by reviewing their recent efforts in renewable energy project implementation, investments in local RE industry, institutional developments, and support to research institutions. Based on the national renewable energy targets for 2020 and 2030, the paper estimates the impacts of the diversification of the GCC energy mix on CO2 emissions and fuel savings. The monetory value of these savings is also estimated based on assumptions of future carbon and fuel prices. Some of the GCC countries have already defined their choice of renewable energy technologies, for others, we develop a potential RE mix comprising of solar, wind and waste to energy technologies. Our findings indicate that the implementation of the RE targets in the GCC can result in very large cumulative CO2 emission savings and fuel savings. The opportunity costs from fuel savings alone would be substantial. In addition, our work shows that the renewable energy targets of the GCC governments are backed by practical efforts that include RE project development, local industry support and domestic capacity building programmes. Successful implementation of these national targets can result in significant savings of valuable fossil fuel resources while significantly reducing the per capita carbon footprint of region.