--- title: "The UAE's \"Zero Carbon\" City is a Huge Failure. Here's Why." description: "In May 2021, the UK-based newspaper *The Independent* wrote a glowing piece about the emergence of an exciting new project in the United Arab Emirates, a 'city of the future' located just 10 minutes' drive from Abu Dhabi International Airport.\n\nKnown as Masdar City, the new project offered acclaim for an exciting and visionary part of its profile: it would be the world's first 'zero carbon' city, aiming to—per the Arab Urban Development Institute—create a low-carbon, low-waste community, with minimal reliance on fossil fuels.\n\nTo accomplish this, Masdar City would offer green solutions to energy and water efficiency, as well as zero-carbon transport options and reduced waste generation.\n\nBut despite its glowing plans, more than three years later Masdar City is very far from a success. Not yet complete, and stagnating in its drive to welcome residents, it is the latest in a series of Gulf projects which seem to have run nowhere.\n\n## A Green Light for a Green City\n\nPlans for the city were unveiled in 2006, amidst a series of similarly ambitious projects taking root in the UAE and the wider Gulf region. The groundbreaking of the project took place in 2008.\n\nThe plan was that Masdar City would take approximately eight years to build, and would be home to around 50,000 permanent inhabitants, as well as around 1,500 businesses, with a further 40,000 day-to-day commuters. As such, it would at once become a residential city, a corporate hub, and—owing to its green ambitions, wacky features, and proximity to major transport hubs—a major tourism destination.\n\nMuch like the King Abdullah Economic City or KAEC, Masdar was the pet project of a single individual: Sultan al-Jaber, an Emirati politician and the country's special envoy for climate change, as well as (perhaps confusingly) the head of the UAE's national oil company—the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or 'Adnoc'. Al-Jaber was also the President of the COP28 climate conference, which took place in 2023 in Dubai, and the founding CEO and chairman of the Masdar Company. Masdar, meaning 'source' in Arabic, lent its name to the city project and is—again, perhaps confusingly— itself owned by Adnoc, the state-owned oil company.\n\nThe city was launched as a state-funded project costing about 22 billion dollars, intended to create \"the world's most sustainable eco-city.\"\n\nAnd its parameters were nothing short of ambitious.\n\n## Parameters\n\nThe plan for Masdar City was to construct an entire city using eco-friendly residential units, powered by renewable energy.\n\nIts electricity would be generated by on-site photovoltaic solar panels of 10 megawatts each. Water would be provided through a desalination plant, itself also solar-powered, while landscaping and Masdar's crops would be irrigated using grey water and treated wastewater produced by the city's water treatment plant.\n\nMoreover, each building would be equipped with extractors that take humidity from the air and convert it into extra water for use by the city, and would also feature water-efficient sinks in all residential buildings to control water flow and prevent wastage.\n\nThe site also featured plans for a major hydrogen power plant, costing 2 billion dollars, as well as a university focused on renewable energy, the Institute of Science and Technology. Another prominent feature would be an oval-shaped structure known as the Knowledge Centre, designed to capitalise on photovoltaic energy, with inclined panels on the roof to help stop direct sunlight from causing the building to overheat.\n\nBut perhaps one of Masdar's most whimsical objectives was in the field of 'green mobility'. Only electric cars would be permitted, with visitors required to leave carbon-consuming vehicles in a parking lot at the entrance of the city. All public transport would be conducted by Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) stations using electric 'mini-pods'—effectively cabin vehicles without drivers, guided by touchscreen controls and navigating through tunnels built beneath street level in and around Masdar.\n\nBut there, already, the project runs into a kind of problem. Cars and buses, while carbon-consuming and highly polluting, are nonetheless crucial for the everyday mobility of citizens even in places with highly-advanced public transport. The absence of car availability—as shown with Egypt's New Administrative Capital—comes at major cost to the perceived liveability of a new development, rendering it difficult to attract tenants.\n\nAnd while a developed state transport infrastructure can help reduce reliance on cars, to outright ban them is a kind of risk. Though Masdar planned to account for this by way of its PRT system, this rather fanciful alternative risked making the city into a sort of gimmick from the very outset. And when deciding where to live, most people don't really go for gimmicks.\n\nThe infrastructure of the city was also designed to encourage walking, with wide pedestrian pavements located throughout the city—but again, this is neither a common way of getting about in Gulf nations nor particularly pragmatic given the great heat of the Arabian peninsula.\n\nPerhaps to account for this, the city claimed to boast an innovative urban design which would allow the site a cooler temperature of between 5 and 10 degrees celsius year-round—a significant concern given the stifling heat of the region and its expected rise as global temperatures do similarly. But such a temperature reduction—while noteworthy—does still not yet seem entirely comfortable in a city where temperatures reach an average of 36 degrees celsius at the height of the summer, leaving the year-round prospect of displacement by walking somewhat unlikely.\n\nDespite all this, the parameters of Masdar City seemed less ambitious and even realistic when compared to the other outlandish projects announced by Saudi Arabia and its neighbours at around the same time.\n\nAt 50,000 planned residents, it seemed to aim for a very achievable inhabitation rate when compared with the King Abdullah Economic City, NEOM, and Egypt's New Administrative Capital—each planned for 2 million, 9 million, and six million inhabitants respectively. And while the visionary features were likely to come at a steep cost, the 22 billion dollar budget set aside for the development seemed more than capable of providing for this, especially when one considers that Egypt planned to stuff six million people into its new capital at an initial planned cost of 45 billion, later rising to 60 billion.\n\nMasdar was also planned to be quite small, 6 square kilometres or about the same in size as Gibraltar. It would constitute little more than an additional district of Abu Dhabi, rather than a sprawling new city as was the case with both the KAEC and the New Administrative Capital.\n\nCertainly quite achievable optics.\n\nBut even in that rather glowing piece by *The Independent*, some cracks in the project were noted. For one, Masdar was supposed to have been completed in 2016, five years before the article was written. In actual fact, as mentioned before, it was initially supposed to be complete several years before that, although it is not uncommon for projects of such scale to run over schedule—even projects which are ultimately successful and which deliver on their stated aims. But somewhat ominously, the article revealed that the number of actual residents living there by 2021 was only 15,000, very few given the city's location in Abu Dhabi and only 40 minutes drive from Dubai. The development was also not fit to welcome tourists yet, one of the linchpins of the whole project, since no hotels had yet been constructed at all. The article stated that the site could only be visited on a day trip from the UAE's other major cities—and this from Sunday to Thursday only.\n\nBut what the article didn't mention was that the project had run into problems as soon as it got off the ground.\n\n## Green City, Red Flags\n\nTwo years after its announcement, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis struck, impacting much of the world, and the United Arab Emirates—despite its great wealth—was no different. One of the first casualties of the new realities was construction projects, and Masdar City was shelved, with a new opening date planned for 2016.\n\nFor some time thereafter, all seemed to be going well. In 2012, the United States' Department of Energy supported the project, signing a partnership agreement with Masdar to share expertise supporting plans for zero-carbon cities. The same year, the city received recognition with reception of the so-called 'Visionaries' Award at Energy Efficiency Global Forum, USA—a forum dedicated to, as described on the Masdar City official website, \"discussions on how to increase energy efficiency through technological breakthroughs and policy advances.\"\n\nIn fact, the website highlights multiple awards bestowed related to Masdar City running through to 2024—although the vast majority, at least recently, appear to be individual awards won by figures connected to the project rather than singular recognitions won by the project itself.\n\nAnd given the responsible-sounding parameters of the project and the fact that many of the infrastructural ambitions have, by now, been built, some could argue that the project is not a failure. But in some ways, it is hard to argue otherwise.\n\nAs with many aforementioned urban projects, the number of residents of the city is nowhere near what was planned at the outset of the project. Keep in mind, the goal of 50,000 residents is probably not terribly ambitious in a region where that number of people would be little more than a neighbourhood. Moreover, Masdar is hardly isolated and is in fact very accessible, being literally a part of Abu Dhabi, with some 4 million people and the UAE's most populous city.\n\nIt would not, one would think, be a great challenge to convince 50,000 residents to up sticks and move a few minutes down the road—especially with Masdar being located directly next to the airport and therefore perfect for inward and outward transit. But it has seemingly proven so. Masdar's population is just 15,000 people—far less than its intended population and significantly less than those of the surrounding (albeit much larger) Abu Dhabi districts of Al-Raha and Al-Khalifa, each with around 110,000 residents. And as if to prove how slow-moving the project has turned out, 15,000 people was the planned occupancy number to be achieved all the way back in 2008, the same year of its groundbreaking. Moreover, of that figure, only around one-third are actually residents of Masdar—with the rest commuting to work or remaining in the city only for short-term stays.\n\nKeep in mind, Masdar is now 16 years old, which amounts to a permanent relocation rate of around 938 people per year: a pretty bad return for such a lauded project. Moreover, only about 3.5 square kilometres of the city have been built, less than half of the planned total—and, again, this after sixteen years of building.\n\nIn fact, its absent occupancy led to *The Guardian*—in late 2023—to label Masdar the world's first green ghost town.\n\nAnd perhaps the biggest problem of all relates to its very *raison d'etre*: the city, visibly, is in no way carbon-neutral.\n\nAdmittedly, to aim to construct a liveable zero-carbon city was always a tall order. Masdar has since admitted that this objective is not achievable, with Chris Wan, the design manager for the project, announcing that the project no longer aimed for net zero, but around fifty percent less emissions. This resulted in the city altering its status, embarrassingly, from \"zero-carbon\" to \"low-carbon\", and the project has largely continued on a much-less publicised course in the most recent few years.\n\n## Analysis\n\nNow, like with the King Abdullah Economic City (but definitely unlike NEOM), it is not that this project was ever really a terrible idea. Some of the reasons for its underwhelming development seem to be rather just down to bad luck.\n\nIn fact, the idea of an entirely sustainable city—especially in a country responsible for one of the highest outputs of carbon in the world—is somewhat applaudable, as Masdar no doubt noticed with its various awards in the years after its announcement.\n\nNevertheless, some critics have pointed out that the whole project stands a little shallow when considering that the UAE produces a lot of oil, and stands by itself as 28th-highest CO2-emitting country in world, above fellow petrostates such as Qatar and Kuwait and even—somehow—one place above the 242-million inhabitant state of Pakistan. In per capita terms, the country's record is even worse: coming in at 7th highest in the world. And while per capita emissions have fallen by about a third since 1990, that is most likely because the population of the state has more than quadrupled in that time, rather than due to any great reduction to its carbon emissions—which have remained almost the same for most of that time. The UAE also ranks among the highest in the world for greenhouse gas emissions, with its per capita contribution an astonishing 400% higher than the world's average.\n\nBut this—rather large—contradiction to one side, it may be that Masdar is a genuine attempt at correcting the UAE's poor carbon-emissions record. And while the city is a failure, it is perhaps not a total failure. In fact, some parts of the city's planning has been a success—kind of.\n\nThe city was featured on a BBC 'Cities of the Future' in 2013, which noted that most of Masdar's completed projects were ranked LEED Gold or Platinum, the top standard in a global certification scheme. Masdar City's university, the Institute of Science and Technology, was quickly finished too, although it was later merged with two other institutes—notably including Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute—into Khalifa University in 2017 and lost its standalone university status. Some of the other features of the city have been applauded, including many of its buildings, held as among the most energy-efficient globally. The heat-reduction scheme intended to make the city more liveable also seems to have worked, with Masdar receiving praise for the relative coolness of its streets despite the otherwise scorching temperatures of the area.\n\nAnd despite its slow development and underwhelming residency, it has at least somewhat succeeded in attracting corporate interests, with a number of companies having set up shop in the new city.\n\nThe initial objective was to lure around 1,500 businesses to Masdar, and it has so far succeeded in attracting around 1,000: still short of the objective, but not by much—and certainly not that few given that the city is half-built. But according to *Fast Company*, this has turned the project into a kind of industrial-estate-slash-parking-lot, unlikely to endear it to new prospective residents, especially given its distance from the plush Abu Dhabi seafront and with the nearby airport's planes roaring overhead. Moreover, although companies like Siemens have made Masdar their base of operations in the Middle East, many other companies' presence in the city is rather symbolic—amounting to, as pointed out by *The Guardian*, not much more than a hot desk.\n\nAnd it is simply too difficult to ignore the half-baked completion and occupancy of the city, especially given the length of time and the fact that neither of these—at least, in terms of inhabitants—were really that ambitious in the first place.\n\nUnfortunately, the likely reason for its faltering lies not necessarily with its aims or ambition, but just that it fell foul of both external events and the unpredictable course of urban development. Masdar was developed at a time which left it vulnerable to both the 2008 financial crash and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, both of which brought building projects to a sudden standstill for several years. During that time, new 'green' transport alternatives appeared on the horizon which appeared much more practical than Masdar's goofy subway pods. Electric scooters, bikes, and cars all entered vogue in the years since 2006, all of them sustainable and readily available in parts of Abu Dhabi that people already lived in, rather than having to move to a new business district just to enjoy sustainable transport options. Perhaps for this reason, the much-heralded PRT system was halted with only two stops built, having been planned to include up to one hundred, with a fleet of only 13 pods travelling at a maximum speed of 40 kilometres per hour.\n\nFurthermore, Masdar's 10 megawatt solar panel field seemed like a big deal at the time of the project's inception, but that output is now almost insignificant in a world where even the most powerful solar panels reach into hundreds of megawatts.\n\nThe advance of time also seems to have taken Masdar's priorities in a rather different direction. In October 2024, the *Financial Times* reported on the company's plan to become one of the world's biggest renewable energy groups by investing in green energy projects across the world. But with the largest market for renewable being in Europe and not—for the time being—in the Middle East, this means that Masdar is likely to focus its efforts on investment in wind farms in countries like Spain and Greece, which may in turn represent a downsizing of its priorities in Masdar City.\n\nThe date of completion of the project has now been pushed all the way back to 2030, a full twenty-two years from its construction start date.\n\nTime will tell if it meets that completion date.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Masdar City, planned as the world's first 'zero carbon' city, has struggled to attract residents and complete construction.\n- The project, launched in 2008 with a 22 billion dollar budget, aimed for 50,000 residents but currently has only 15,000.\n- Masdar City's ambitious green mobility plans, including electric 'mini-pods,' have not been fully realized or widely adopted.\n- External events like the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted the project's timeline and development.\n- Despite its setbacks, Masdar City has achieved some successes in energy-efficient buildings and corporate interest.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### What is Masdar City?\n\nMasdar City is a project in the United Arab Emirates aimed at being the world's first 'zero carbon' city, focusing on low-carbon, low-waste living with minimal reliance on fossil fuels.\n\n### When was Masdar City first announced?\n\nPlans for Masdar City were unveiled in 2006, with the groundbreaking taking place in 2008.\n\n### What were the initial goals for Masdar City?\n\nThe initial goals were to create a city with 50,000 permanent inhabitants, 1,500 businesses, and 40,000 daily commuters, all while being powered by renewable energy and featuring zero-carbon transport options.\n\n### What are some of the green features planned for Masdar City?\n\nMasdar City planned to use photovoltaic solar panels for electricity, a solar-powered desalination plant for water, and a hydrogen power plant. It also aimed to use electric 'mini-pods' for public transport and encourage walking with wide pedestrian pavements.\n\n### What challenges has Masdar City faced?\n\nMasdar City has faced delays due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. It has also struggled to attract residents and businesses as planned, with only 15,000 residents and about 1,000 businesses as of recent reports.\n\n### What is the current status of Masdar City's completion?\n\nAs of the latest information, only about 3.5 square kilometers of the planned 6 square kilometers have been built, and the project's completion date has been pushed back to 2030.\n\n### Has Masdar City achieved its zero-carbon goal?\n\nNo, Masdar City has admitted that achieving a zero-carbon status is not feasible. The project now aims for around fifty percent less emissions, changing its status from 'zero-carbon' to 'low-carbon'.\n\n### What recognition has Masdar City received?\n\nMasdar City has received several awards, including the 'Visionaries' Award at the Energy Efficiency Global Forum in 2012. It has also been featured in media outlets like the BBC for its sustainable features.\n\n### What is the current focus of the Masdar company?\n\nThe Masdar company is now focusing on becoming one of the world's biggest renewable energy groups by investing in green energy projects globally, particularly in Europe.\n\n### What is the current population of Masdar City?\n\nAs of the latest reports, Masdar City has around 15,000 residents, far below the initial goal of 50,000.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original MegaProjects video: The UAE's \"Zero Carbon\" City is a Huge Failure. Here's Why.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10O2fghqZc)\n- [https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/sustainable-living/united-arab-emirates-city-future-zero-carbon-b1847625.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/sustainable-living/united-arab-emirates-city-future-zero-carbon-b1847625.html)\n- [https://masdar.ae/en/our-company/awards-and-recognition](https://masdar.ae/en/our-company/awards-and-recognition)\n- [https://www.fastcompany.com/90995444/the-uaes-green-city-is-a-cautionary-tale-its-hard-to-build-a-climate-haven-no-matter-how-much-oil-money-you-have](https://www.fastcompany.com/90995444/the-uaes-green-city-is-a-cautionary-tale-its-hard-to-build-a-climate-haven-no-matter-how-much-oil-money-you-have)\n- [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20957953](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20957953)\n- [https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024?vis=co2pop#emissions_table](https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024?vis=co2pop#emissions_table)\n- [https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ARE/uae/population](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ARE/uae/population)\n- [https://araburban.org/en/infohub/projects/?id=3537](https://araburban.org/en/infohub/projects/?id=3537)\n- [https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/masdar-city-receives-visionaries-award-at-energy-efficiency-global-forum-usa](https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/masdar-city-receives-visionaries-award-at-energy-efficiency-global-forum-usa)\n- [https://www.reuters.com/article/environment-emirates-energy-green-dc/abu-dhabi-to-invest-15-billion-in-green-energy-idUKL2131306920080121/](https://www.reuters.com/article/environment-emirates-energy-green-dc/abu-dhabi-to-invest-15-billion-in-green-energy-idUKL2131306920080121/)\n- [https://www.holiday-weather.com/abu_dhabi/averages/](https://www.holiday-weather.com/abu_dhabi/averages/)\n- [https://www.ft.com/content/1386a3e7-db11-43b6-ad07-900c401a66a3](https://www.ft.com/content/1386a3e7-db11-43b6-ad07-900c401a66a3)\n- [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/16/masdars-zero-carbon-dream-could-become-worlds-first-green-ghost-town](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/16/masdars-zero-carbon-dream-could-become-worlds-first-green-ghost-town)\n- [https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/the-green-city-oasis-that-has-failed-to-grow-n5q65xmmg](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/the-green-city-oasis-that-has-failed-to-grow-n5q65xmmg)\n- [https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/most-powerful-solar-panels](https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/most-powerful-solar-panels)\n- [https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/hwbjournal/article/1053/&path_info=1_ZERO_CARBON_CITY__MASDAR_CITY_CRITICAL_ANALYSIS.pdf](https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/hwbjournal/article/1053/&path_info=1_ZERO_CARBON_CITY__MASDAR_CITY_CRITICAL_ANALYSIS.pdf)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Josep_Borrell%27s_visit_to_the_United_Arab_Emirates_-_2024_%28P064402-941664%29.jpg) by Majdi Mohammad Moubark / European Union / openverse, by.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://megaprojects.pub/article/uae-zero-carbon-city-masdar-failure.md canonical: https://megaprojects.pub/article/uae-zero-carbon-city-masdar-failure datePublished: 2026-07-02 dateModified: 2026-07-02 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://megaprojects.pub/author/simon-whistler publisher: MegaProjects image: "https://media.megaprojects.pub/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,height=338,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/E10O2fghqZc/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: a3b75fbea9ba0de60f7caf83082504d43e70ed48ace935d3fdd317dc675cb7c5 tokens: 5957 summaryUrl: https://megaprojects.pub/article/uae-zero-carbon-city-masdar-failure.md.summary.md --- In May 2021, the UK-based newspaper *The Independent* wrote a glowing piece about the emergence of an exciting new project in the United Arab Emirates, a 'city of the future' located just 10 minutes' drive from Abu Dhabi International Airport. Known as Masdar City, the new project offered acclaim for an exciting and visionary part of its profile: it would be the world's first 'zero carbon' city, aiming to—per the Arab Urban Development Institute—create a low-carbon, low-waste community, with minimal reliance on fossil fuels. To accomplish this, Masdar City would offer green solutions to energy and water efficiency, as well as zero-carbon transport options and reduced waste generation. But despite its glowing plans, more than three years later Masdar City is very far from a success. Not yet complete, and stagnating in its drive to welcome residents, it is the latest in a series of Gulf projects which seem to have run nowhere. ## A Green Light for a Green City Plans for the city were unveiled in 2006, amidst a series of similarly ambitious projects taking root in the UAE and the wider Gulf region. The groundbreaking of the project took place in 2008. The plan was that Masdar City would take approximately eight years to build, and would be home to around 50,000 permanent inhabitants, as well as around 1,500 businesses, with a further 40,000 day-to-day commuters. As such, it would at once become a residential city, a corporate hub, and—owing to its green ambitions, wacky features, and proximity to major transport hubs—a major tourism destination. Much like the King Abdullah Economic City or KAEC, Masdar was the pet project of a single individual: Sultan al-Jaber, an Emirati politician and the country's special envoy for climate change, as well as (perhaps confusingly) the head of the UAE's national oil company—the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company or 'Adnoc'. Al-Jaber was also the President of the COP28 climate conference, which took place in 2023 in Dubai, and the founding CEO and chairman of the Masdar Company. Masdar, meaning 'source' in Arabic, lent its name to the city project and is—again, perhaps confusingly— itself owned by Adnoc, the state-owned oil company. The city was launched as a state-funded project costing about 22 billion dollars, intended to create "the world's most sustainable eco-city." And its parameters were nothing short of ambitious. ## Parameters The plan for Masdar City was to construct an entire city using eco-friendly residential units, powered by renewable energy. Its electricity would be generated by on-site photovoltaic solar panels of 10 megawatts each. Water would be provided through a desalination plant, itself also solar-powered, while landscaping and Masdar's crops would be irrigated using grey water and treated wastewater produced by the city's water treatment plant. Moreover, each building would be equipped with extractors that take humidity from the air and convert it into extra water for use by the city, and would also feature water-efficient sinks in all residential buildings to control water flow and prevent wastage. The site also featured plans for a major hydrogen power plant, costing 2 billion dollars, as well as a university focused on renewable energy, the Institute of Science and Technology. Another prominent feature would be an oval-shaped structure known as the Knowledge Centre, designed to capitalise on photovoltaic energy, with inclined panels on the roof to help stop direct sunlight from causing the building to overheat. But perhaps one of Masdar's most whimsical objectives was in the field of 'green mobility'. Only electric cars would be permitted, with visitors required to leave carbon-consuming vehicles in a parking lot at the entrance of the city. All public transport would be conducted by Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) stations using electric 'mini-pods'—effectively cabin vehicles without drivers, guided by touchscreen controls and navigating through tunnels built beneath street level in and around Masdar. But there, already, the project runs into a kind of problem. Cars and buses, while carbon-consuming and highly polluting, are nonetheless crucial for the everyday mobility of citizens even in places with highly-advanced public transport. The absence of car availability—as shown with Egypt's New Administrative Capital—comes at major cost to the perceived liveability of a new development, rendering it difficult to attract tenants. And while a developed state transport infrastructure can help reduce reliance on cars, to outright ban them is a kind of risk. Though Masdar planned to account for this by way of its PRT system, this rather fanciful alternative risked making the city into a sort of gimmick from the very outset. And when deciding where to live, most people don't really go for gimmicks. The infrastructure of the city was also designed to encourage walking, with wide pedestrian pavements located throughout the city—but again, this is neither a common way of getting about in Gulf nations nor particularly pragmatic given the great heat of the Arabian peninsula. Perhaps to account for this, the city claimed to boast an innovative urban design which would allow the site a cooler temperature of between 5 and 10 degrees celsius year-round—a significant concern given the stifling heat of the region and its expected rise as global temperatures do similarly. But such a temperature reduction—while noteworthy—does still not yet seem entirely comfortable in a city where temperatures reach an average of 36 degrees celsius at the height of the summer, leaving the year-round prospect of displacement by walking somewhat unlikely. Despite all this, the parameters of Masdar City seemed less ambitious and even realistic when compared to the other outlandish projects announced by Saudi Arabia and its neighbours at around the same time. At 50,000 planned residents, it seemed to aim for a very achievable inhabitation rate when compared with the King Abdullah Economic City, NEOM, and Egypt's New Administrative Capital—each planned for 2 million, 9 million, and six million inhabitants respectively. And while the visionary features were likely to come at a steep cost, the 22 billion dollar budget set aside for the development seemed more than capable of providing for this, especially when one considers that Egypt planned to stuff six million people into its new capital at an initial planned cost of 45 billion, later rising to 60 billion. Masdar was also planned to be quite small, 6 square kilometres or about the same in size as Gibraltar. It would constitute little more than an additional district of Abu Dhabi, rather than a sprawling new city as was the case with both the KAEC and the New Administrative Capital. Certainly quite achievable optics. But even in that rather glowing piece by *The Independent*, some cracks in the project were noted. For one, Masdar was supposed to have been completed in 2016, five years before the article was written. In actual fact, as mentioned before, it was initially supposed to be complete several years before that, although it is not uncommon for projects of such scale to run over schedule—even projects which are ultimately successful and which deliver on their stated aims. But somewhat ominously, the article revealed that the number of actual residents living there by 2021 was only 15,000, very few given the city's location in Abu Dhabi and only 40 minutes drive from Dubai. The development was also not fit to welcome tourists yet, one of the linchpins of the whole project, since no hotels had yet been constructed at all. The article stated that the site could only be visited on a day trip from the UAE's other major cities—and this from Sunday to Thursday only. But what the article didn't mention was that the project had run into problems as soon as it got off the ground. ## Green City, Red Flags Two years after its announcement, the 2008 Global Financial Crisis struck, impacting much of the world, and the United Arab Emirates—despite its great wealth—was no different. One of the first casualties of the new realities was construction projects, and Masdar City was shelved, with a new opening date planned for 2016. For some time thereafter, all seemed to be going well. In 2012, the United States' Department of Energy supported the project, signing a partnership agreement with Masdar to share expertise supporting plans for zero-carbon cities. The same year, the city received recognition with reception of the so-called 'Visionaries' Award at Energy Efficiency Global Forum, USA—a forum dedicated to, as described on the Masdar City official website, "discussions on how to increase energy efficiency through technological breakthroughs and policy advances." In fact, the website highlights multiple awards bestowed related to Masdar City running through to 2024—although the vast majority, at least recently, appear to be individual awards won by figures connected to the project rather than singular recognitions won by the project itself. And given the responsible-sounding parameters of the project and the fact that many of the infrastructural ambitions have, by now, been built, some could argue that the project is not a failure. But in some ways, it is hard to argue otherwise. As with many aforementioned urban projects, the number of residents of the city is nowhere near what was planned at the outset of the project. Keep in mind, the goal of 50,000 residents is probably not terribly ambitious in a region where that number of people would be little more than a neighbourhood. Moreover, Masdar is hardly isolated and is in fact very accessible, being literally a part of Abu Dhabi, with some 4 million people and the UAE's most populous city. It would not, one would think, be a great challenge to convince 50,000 residents to up sticks and move a few minutes down the road—especially with Masdar being located directly next to the airport and therefore perfect for inward and outward transit. But it has seemingly proven so. Masdar's population is just 15,000 people—far less than its intended population and significantly less than those of the surrounding (albeit much larger) Abu Dhabi districts of Al-Raha and Al-Khalifa, each with around 110,000 residents. And as if to prove how slow-moving the project has turned out, 15,000 people was the planned occupancy number to be achieved all the way back in 2008, the same year of its groundbreaking. Moreover, of that figure, only around one-third are actually residents of Masdar—with the rest commuting to work or remaining in the city only for short-term stays. Keep in mind, Masdar is now 16 years old, which amounts to a permanent relocation rate of around 938 people per year: a pretty bad return for such a lauded project. Moreover, only about 3.5 square kilometres of the city have been built, less than half of the planned total—and, again, this after sixteen years of building. In fact, its absent occupancy led to *The Guardian*—in late 2023—to label Masdar the world's first green ghost town. And perhaps the biggest problem of all relates to its very *raison d'etre*: the city, visibly, is in no way carbon-neutral. Admittedly, to aim to construct a liveable zero-carbon city was always a tall order. Masdar has since admitted that this objective is not achievable, with Chris Wan, the design manager for the project, announcing that the project no longer aimed for net zero, but around fifty percent less emissions. This resulted in the city altering its status, embarrassingly, from "zero-carbon" to "low-carbon", and the project has largely continued on a much-less publicised course in the most recent few years. ## Analysis Now, like with the King Abdullah Economic City (but definitely unlike NEOM), it is not that this project was ever really a terrible idea. Some of the reasons for its underwhelming development seem to be rather just down to bad luck. In fact, the idea of an entirely sustainable city—especially in a country responsible for one of the highest outputs of carbon in the world—is somewhat applaudable, as Masdar no doubt noticed with its various awards in the years after its announcement. Nevertheless, some critics have pointed out that the whole project stands a little shallow when considering that the UAE produces a lot of oil, and stands by itself as 28th-highest CO2-emitting country in world, above fellow petrostates such as Qatar and Kuwait and even—somehow—one place above the 242-million inhabitant state of Pakistan. In per capita terms, the country's record is even worse: coming in at 7th highest in the world. And while per capita emissions have fallen by about a third since 1990, that is most likely because the population of the state has more than quadrupled in that time, rather than due to any great reduction to its carbon emissions—which have remained almost the same for most of that time. The UAE also ranks among the highest in the world for greenhouse gas emissions, with its per capita contribution an astonishing 400% higher than the world's average. But this—rather large—contradiction to one side, it may be that Masdar is a genuine attempt at correcting the UAE's poor carbon-emissions record. And while the city is a failure, it is perhaps not a total failure. In fact, some parts of the city's planning has been a success—kind of. The city was featured on a BBC 'Cities of the Future' in 2013, which noted that most of Masdar's completed projects were ranked LEED Gold or Platinum, the top standard in a global certification scheme. Masdar City's university, the Institute of Science and Technology, was quickly finished too, although it was later merged with two other institutes—notably including Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute—into Khalifa University in 2017 and lost its standalone university status. Some of the other features of the city have been applauded, including many of its buildings, held as among the most energy-efficient globally. The heat-reduction scheme intended to make the city more liveable also seems to have worked, with Masdar receiving praise for the relative coolness of its streets despite the otherwise scorching temperatures of the area. And despite its slow development and underwhelming residency, it has at least somewhat succeeded in attracting corporate interests, with a number of companies having set up shop in the new city. The initial objective was to lure around 1,500 businesses to Masdar, and it has so far succeeded in attracting around 1,000: still short of the objective, but not by much—and certainly not that few given that the city is half-built. But according to *Fast Company*, this has turned the project into a kind of industrial-estate-slash-parking-lot, unlikely to endear it to new prospective residents, especially given its distance from the plush Abu Dhabi seafront and with the nearby airport's planes roaring overhead. Moreover, although companies like Siemens have made Masdar their base of operations in the Middle East, many other companies' presence in the city is rather symbolic—amounting to, as pointed out by *The Guardian*, not much more than a hot desk. And it is simply too difficult to ignore the half-baked completion and occupancy of the city, especially given the length of time and the fact that neither of these—at least, in terms of inhabitants—were really that ambitious in the first place. Unfortunately, the likely reason for its faltering lies not necessarily with its aims or ambition, but just that it fell foul of both external events and the unpredictable course of urban development. Masdar was developed at a time which left it vulnerable to both the 2008 financial crash and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, both of which brought building projects to a sudden standstill for several years. During that time, new 'green' transport alternatives appeared on the horizon which appeared much more practical than Masdar's goofy subway pods. Electric scooters, bikes, and cars all entered vogue in the years since 2006, all of them sustainable and readily available in parts of Abu Dhabi that people already lived in, rather than having to move to a new business district just to enjoy sustainable transport options. Perhaps for this reason, the much-heralded PRT system was halted with only two stops built, having been planned to include up to one hundred, with a fleet of only 13 pods travelling at a maximum speed of 40 kilometres per hour. Furthermore, Masdar's 10 megawatt solar panel field seemed like a big deal at the time of the project's inception, but that output is now almost insignificant in a world where even the most powerful solar panels reach into hundreds of megawatts. The advance of time also seems to have taken Masdar's priorities in a rather different direction. In October 2024, the *Financial Times* reported on the company's plan to become one of the world's biggest renewable energy groups by investing in green energy projects across the world. But with the largest market for renewable being in Europe and not—for the time being—in the Middle East, this means that Masdar is likely to focus its efforts on investment in wind farms in countries like Spain and Greece, which may in turn represent a downsizing of its priorities in Masdar City. The date of completion of the project has now been pushed all the way back to 2030, a full twenty-two years from its construction start date. Time will tell if it meets that completion date. ## Key Takeaways - Masdar City, planned as the world's first 'zero carbon' city, has struggled to attract residents and complete construction. - The project, launched in 2008 with a 22 billion dollar budget, aimed for 50,000 residents but currently has only 15,000. - Masdar City's ambitious green mobility plans, including electric 'mini-pods,' have not been fully realized or widely adopted. - External events like the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted the project's timeline and development. - Despite its setbacks, Masdar City has achieved some successes in energy-efficient buildings and corporate interest. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Masdar City? Masdar City is a project in the United Arab Emirates aimed at being the world's first 'zero carbon' city, focusing on low-carbon, low-waste living with minimal reliance on fossil fuels. ### When was Masdar City first announced? Plans for Masdar City were unveiled in 2006, with the groundbreaking taking place in 2008. ### What were the initial goals for Masdar City? The initial goals were to create a city with 50,000 permanent inhabitants, 1,500 businesses, and 40,000 daily commuters, all while being powered by renewable energy and featuring zero-carbon transport options. ### What are some of the green features planned for Masdar City? Masdar City planned to use photovoltaic solar panels for electricity, a solar-powered desalination plant for water, and a hydrogen power plant. It also aimed to use electric 'mini-pods' for public transport and encourage walking with wide pedestrian pavements. ### What challenges has Masdar City faced? Masdar City has faced delays due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. It has also struggled to attract residents and businesses as planned, with only 15,000 residents and about 1,000 businesses as of recent reports. ### What is the current status of Masdar City's completion? As of the latest information, only about 3.5 square kilometers of the planned 6 square kilometers have been built, and the project's completion date has been pushed back to 2030. ### Has Masdar City achieved its zero-carbon goal? No, Masdar City has admitted that achieving a zero-carbon status is not feasible. The project now aims for around fifty percent less emissions, changing its status from 'zero-carbon' to 'low-carbon'. ### What recognition has Masdar City received? Masdar City has received several awards, including the 'Visionaries' Award at the Energy Efficiency Global Forum in 2012. It has also been featured in media outlets like the BBC for its sustainable features. ### What is the current focus of the Masdar company? The Masdar company is now focusing on becoming one of the world's biggest renewable energy groups by investing in green energy projects globally, particularly in Europe. ### What is the current population of Masdar City? As of the latest reports, Masdar City has around 15,000 residents, far below the initial goal of 50,000. ## Sources - [Original MegaProjects video: The UAE's "Zero Carbon" City is a Huge Failure. Here's Why.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E10O2fghqZc) - [https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/sustainable-living/united-arab-emirates-city-future-zero-carbon-b1847625.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/sustainable-living/united-arab-emirates-city-future-zero-carbon-b1847625.html) - [https://masdar.ae/en/our-company/awards-and-recognition](https://masdar.ae/en/our-company/awards-and-recognition) - [https://www.fastcompany.com/90995444/the-uaes-green-city-is-a-cautionary-tale-its-hard-to-build-a-climate-haven-no-matter-how-much-oil-money-you-have](https://www.fastcompany.com/90995444/the-uaes-green-city-is-a-cautionary-tale-its-hard-to-build-a-climate-haven-no-matter-how-much-oil-money-you-have) - [https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20957953](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20957953) - [https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024?vis=co2pop#emissions_table](https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2024?vis=co2pop#emissions_table) - [https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ARE/uae/population](https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/ARE/uae/population) - [https://araburban.org/en/infohub/projects/?id=3537](https://araburban.org/en/infohub/projects/?id=3537) - [https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/masdar-city-receives-visionaries-award-at-energy-efficiency-global-forum-usa](https://masdar.ae/en/news/newsroom/masdar-city-receives-visionaries-award-at-energy-efficiency-global-forum-usa) - [https://www.reuters.com/article/environment-emirates-energy-green-dc/abu-dhabi-to-invest-15-billion-in-green-energy-idUKL2131306920080121/](https://www.reuters.com/article/environment-emirates-energy-green-dc/abu-dhabi-to-invest-15-billion-in-green-energy-idUKL2131306920080121/) - [https://www.holiday-weather.com/abu_dhabi/averages/](https://www.holiday-weather.com/abu_dhabi/averages/) - [https://www.ft.com/content/1386a3e7-db11-43b6-ad07-900c401a66a3](https://www.ft.com/content/1386a3e7-db11-43b6-ad07-900c401a66a3) - [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/16/masdars-zero-carbon-dream-could-become-worlds-first-green-ghost-town](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/16/masdars-zero-carbon-dream-could-become-worlds-first-green-ghost-town) - [https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/the-green-city-oasis-that-has-failed-to-grow-n5q65xmmg](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/the-green-city-oasis-that-has-failed-to-grow-n5q65xmmg) - [https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/most-powerful-solar-panels](https://www.cleanenergyreviews.info/blog/most-powerful-solar-panels) - [https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/hwbjournal/article/1053/&path_info=1_ZERO_CARBON_CITY__MASDAR_CITY_CRITICAL_ANALYSIS.pdf](https://digitalcommons.bau.edu.lb/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/hwbjournal/article/1053/&path_info=1_ZERO_CARBON_CITY__MASDAR_CITY_CRITICAL_ANALYSIS.pdf) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Josep_Borrell%27s_visit_to_the_United_Arab_Emirates_-_2024_%28P064402-941664%29.jpg) by Majdi Mohammad Moubark / European Union / openverse, by. ## Related Coverage