Sustainable Qatar

The Qatar National Vision of 2030 has identified bold and transformational goals for the country. As envisioned by the State of Qatar, the transition to sustainable Qatar weaves together four pillars of economic, social, human, and environmental development. Yet, the country faces significant challenges, and with these challenges a range of options for future pathways. With the National Vision 2030 being launched in 2008, this volume provides an update on the key sustainability issues, focusing on environmental sustainability from a socio-political perspective.

Environmental sustainability has been increasingly present on Qatar’s policy agenda since the early 2000s, with the ratification of the Permanent Constitution, the issuance of several environmental laws, and the launch of Qatar National Vision 2030, and its supplementary strategies. This chapter tracks the development of environmental policy through surveying the country’s key ‘guiding’ policy documents; Qatar National Vision 2030, the first and second National Development Strategies, sectoral strategies, and through reviewing laws and regulations that have been issued so far to safeguard the ecological systems and their inhabitants. This chapter also investigates the respective government institutions and how their role has evolved over the years.

Over the last few decades, Qatar has developed a clear, comprehensive, and committed legal order that places sustainability squarely at the heart of its rapid economic development. In addition to the Qatar National Vision 2030 (QNV 2030), which accentuates the need for balanced and holistic social, economic, and environmental development, Qatar has been a hub of research, technology development, and public dialogue on sustainable development. More recently, Qatar has also launched a National Environment and Climate Change Strategy that outlines practical steps to achieve the environment pillar of the QNV 2030. These efforts underline Qatar’s commitment and vision to promote balanced and holistic social, environment, and economic development across all key sectors. However, while the impetus and appetite for sustainability is rapidly increasing in Qatar, dynamic legal innovation is required to ensure greater coordination and coherence in the implementation of such efforts. This chapter evaluates law and governance innovations that have been put in place in Qatar to advance sustainability and low-carbon transition. It also proposes innovative legal approaches for addressing practical challenges to implementation, especially issues of institutional coordination, interoperability, and reducing overlaps in regulatory arrangements.

Hosting the FIFA World Cup, an international football competition for national men’s teams, in Qatar has acted as a catalyst for environmental sustainability. A mega sporting event such as the FIFA World Cup requires concerted efforts from nearly all sectors of a country. A strong sustainability program with a focus on preparation, event time operations, and post-event legacy was required to capitalize on the opportunities associated with hosting such an event. A robust and inclusive process to design such a program for the event laid the foundation for positive legacy outcomes. The legacy outcomes are categorized as physical, knowledge, and institutional, all being important contributors towards the realization of the Qatar National Vision 2030. This chapter describes the sustainability program development process, provides examples of how strategic initiatives for Sustainable Buildings, Greenhouse gas Emissions, and Waste Minimization catalysed positive developments leading to strong and tangible legacy outcomes. It is plausible that future events may look to this program to seek inspiration and lessons learnt for how to design and benchmark their sustainability programs. Qatar will also host many large events in the future, including the Asian Games 2030, and will capitalize on the developments that the FIFA World Cup brought about.

Addressing sustainability issues requires a complex multisectoral systems shift that cuts across government and public sector to private sector and civil society. Non-state actors have long played a role in promoting sustainability; from nonprofits to youth movements, to civil activists’ think tanks and policy institutions, there are several examples of how these have shaped sustainability considerations worldwide. However, it is rare to find areas of intersection for the different actors. Far too commonly, efforts are siloed and as a result miss out on potential synergies from collaboration. Nowhere in the world do research, education, and civil society come together as they do in Qatar Foundation (QF), which is what places it so well as a critical sustainability innovator. Sustainability has been at the core of QF’s mission for over 25 years. Recognizing its own role as a contributor to the country’s ecological footprint, QF has been striving to enhance its sustainability practices and is committed to advance education on sustainability, promote and pilot innovative solutions, and advocate for national policy change. This chapter highlights this unique case study, one of the few places where preK-12 and tertiary education are found together, alongside NGOs, research institutes, think tanks, and cultural institutions, resulting in a unique ecosystem catalyzing innovation in sustainability.

Qatar’s successful exploitation of its natural gas resources has been a cornerstone of its rise as a global energy power. Despite progress in diversification, the energy sector remains a primary driver of Qatar’s economy, which makes it integral in any assessment of future sustainability. Qatar’s future sustainability and the role of its energy sector must be evaluated in light of global changes, such as the shift to renewables, carbon neutrality, and changing geopolitics. This chapter seeks to engage with global trends and provide a sustainability perspective for Qatar. Reflections are made on changes occurring within the European Union and East Asia, and how Qatar can position itself to capitalize on these trends.

Climate change is accepted today as an indisputable fact resulting from human activity, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels. In order to prevent the catastrophic impacts of climate change, the world agreed in Conference of the Parties (COP) 21 to limit the global temperature rise above pre-industrial levels to 2 °C. To meet the Paris Agreement, a profound transformation of global energy systems is required from fossil fuel-based to low or zero carbon sources. This creates a risk for hydrocarbon-producing countries such as Qatar, which depend on fuel exports for income. In the short term, Qatar is well suited for the energy transition due to its abundance of natural gas, a widely acceptable transition fuel. Technological improvement in renewable energy as well as fast moving competition in the hydrogen market, showcase Qatar’s hydrocarbon export vulnerabilities. This chapter will provide a background on energy transition elements, Qatar’s efforts locally and internationally in the transition to a low carbon economy and highlights the opportunities and vulnerabilities for Qatar to build resilience.

Sustainable development is a critical component of the Qatar National Vision 2030 and of the national strategy implementing it. The State of Qatar is developing policies aimed at protecting the environment, sustaining economic prosperity, and developing a knowledge-based society. The three pillars of sustainability—environment, economy, and society—are closely interlinked and need to be treated as such by policymakers. In this chapter, we first discuss the systemic nature of the sustainability challenges of Qatar, particularly focusing on the complex transition the country is facing as it moves away from the current rentier economic model, with its social and environmental implications, towards a new model where new, knowledge-based industries develop in areas such as climate-tech and services. We then discuss systems analysis frameworks and tools at the disposal of governments to support sustainability policy design, and we illustrate one tool in particular that we are developing at QEERI: an energy systems model. We conclude with recommendations on equipping Qatar with an analytical toolkit to support sustainability policymaking.

The warming of the global ocean and the melting of ice caps have been continuously and increasingly rapidly driving the phenomenon of sea level rise (SLR) over the past century, threatening the safety and standards of living of the world’s 800 million inhabitants of coastal cities. Despite renewed commitments to fight the causes of climate change during the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, the current policies of the world’s largest polluting countries still put humanity on a dangerous path toward high levels of global warming and SLR for the decades and centuries to come. Based on the latest scientific publications, including the IPCC’s Assessment Report 6, this chapter sheds light on how this phenomenon is expected to affect in a multi-dimensional manner the safety and standards of living of coastal city inhabitants across the Arab region, and especially in the Arabian Gulf sub-region, in the decades and centuries to come. Studying the case of Doha, we highlight several policy challenges and opportunities that could influence the hazards as well as the levels of vulnerability and exposure to which individual Arab coastal cities are exposed to. The authors conclude that collectively fighting the causes of climate change, better planning urban and coastal development, as well as innovating for the climate adaptation of Arab coastal cities should be understood by policymakers, the private sector, and populations alike as a national security challenge that requires urgent individual and collective action.

Decommissioning obsolete oil platforms in the upcoming decades in Qatar, through a complete removal, will imply a major loss of the fouling biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions and services. The rig-to-reef approach, successfully implemented in other seas of the world, provides an attractive alternative to the complete removal by reefing the underwater oilrig structures and theoretically provides positive environmental, economic, and social benefits to a wide range of stakeholders. This manuscript critically reports and analyzes the risks associated with the implementation of the rig-to-reef approach in Qatar oilfields by using a DPSIR conceptual framework focusing on the pressures, states, impacts, and responses. By portraying reefing approaches as an issue, several pressures were identified including potential navigational safety issue, pollution, and physical disturbances. These pressures are expected to modify the physical, biological, and chemical state of the ecosystems, potentially leading to several impacts, such as the loss of habitats, biodiversity, and associated ecosystem services. The identified hazards and their potential risks were analyzed, and these seemed to be outweighed by the potential benefits of reefing obsolete oil platforms. Nevertheless, the critical impairment to the rig-to-reef implementation, mainly associated to existing regulatory frameworks, should be addressed.

Qatar is considered one of the most highly water stressed countries in the world, with little in the way of natural water resources. It is almost entirely reliant on the desalination of seawater to provide for municipal and industrial needs, while the growing agricultural sector has historically been dependent upon the desalination of brackish groundwater. This chapter outlines the sustainability initiatives, national strategies, policy instruments, and drivers for efficiency improvements in the water sector in Qatar. The Qatar National Vision 2030 has a particular focus on reducing consumption, improving conservation, and on the circular water economy, highlighting the value of research, development, and innovation (RDI) in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Significant investment has taken place toward developing a sustainable water industry, where a transition toward renewable energy resources can support desalination, wastewater treatment, and reuse policies for a sustainable Qatar.

Despite the relatively long experience of charitable organizations in social and humanitarian aspects in Qatar, little is known about their role in food security and sustainability. This chapter sheds light on the issue of food waste and assesses the role of non-profit organizations in food security and sustainability in the State of Qatar. The analysis is based on data sourced from two active non-profit organizations working on food surplus and redistribution in Qatar, namely, Hifz Al Naema and Wahab. The results indicate that the organizations under study are exerting a considerable effort to maintain food security and to reduce food waste, and their intervention increase over time. However, despite the sizable efforts exerted by charitable organizations to sustain food security, the issue of food surplus in Qatar still is a puzzling problem. The chapter recommends that collective cooperation between academics, government entities, and civil society would help in designing an effective strategy that aims to sustain food security. Moreover, policymakers need to support and encourage charitable organizations to participate in managing, sustaining, and achieving food security. Therefore, allocating grants and facilities to organizations that operate in food waste management would stimulate the charitable societies to contribute to food sustainability.

The biological wealth of hyper-arid environments has traditionally been underestimated. However, with recent advancements in technology and understanding, desert biodiversity has become an important component of climate change resilience and will become increasingly important. Extreme weather events, such as drought and heat events, are becoming more common and the salinization of soils is increasing. The genetic and metabolic components of desert and saline-adapted organisms from microbes to plants to animals can be used to ensure agricultural resiliency, improve human health through unique bioactive components, and serve as the blueprint for biomimetic designs.

The 15-Min City is a proposed new way of re-assessing and upgrading the liveability of our cities. Put forward by Professor Carlos Moreno, it is becoming a prevalent discussion among policymakers and urbanists across many cities. At its core is a belief that cities should be planned for walking and biking and all daily essentials should be located within fifteen minutes of one’s residence. In this chapter, we use the 15-Min concept as a lens to discuss Doha’s potential of adapting itself to the new notion of chrono-urbanism, poised by recent shifts in people’ mobility patterns, their proximity needs, and their own perceptions and experiences in the city, and considering post-pandemic reflections on strengths and weaknesses of cities to remain malleable, less car-dependent and to continuously synchronize with the needs of their residents.

The achievement of smart urbanism and sustainable urbanism is one of the more prominent themes of the research on urban planning worldwide. Smart sustainable cities (SSCs) are rapidly impacting global debates about the future prospects of urban development. Despite several instances of the characteristics of a smart or sustainable city, a precise definition and a theoretical framework remain lacking. An analysis of regional development plans and city layout reveals that large-scale development will continue in an unsustainable manner. The current trends indicate that infrastructure planning in the cities of the Arabian Gulf must be reoriented towards compact, linked and people-centric characteristics as well as low-carbon infrastructure (UN Habitat in Smart sustainable cities and smart digital solutions for urban resilience in the Arab region: Lessons from the pandemic, 2021). The governments of the Gulf states are confronted with major obstacles due to a projected increase in population and significant reliance on hydrocarbon energy sources. Gulf cities are at the forefront of increasing demand and pressure on critical resources, such as electricity, food and water, which results in a substantial carbon footprint on the environment. In the Gulf region, SSCs emerge as a potential answer to concerns associated with resilience and sustainability, which also emerge due to the unprecedented rate of urbanisation. SSCs are designed to deliver a succession of intelligent solutions for mitigating the economic, social and environmental effects of urban issues (UN Habitant, 2021). This chapter presents a framework for sustainable urbanism by integrating concepts derived from several disciplines. This knowledge-based approach integrates the multidimensional domain knowledge of urban sustainability to produce a comprehensive road map. Given that smart and sustainable urbanism incorporates elements derived from society, technology, policy and the environment, this integration is relatively complex. The proposed framework can contribute to an informed and well-defined understanding of problems faced by cities in the Gulf nations as they strive to achieve sustainable urbanism with a low-carbon footprint.

This chapter is an attempt to track the evolution of the solid waste management (SWM) system in Qatar including its recent technological leap of establishing Mesaieed’s integrated waste management facility. A variety of factors that have contributed in shaping the sector are determined covering external and internal, hard and soft, ones in the political, economic, and social contexts. Despite the strides, the Qatari SWM sector has witnessed under the aspiration of the sustainability-conscious Qatar National Vision 2030 and its emanated two National Development Strategies (2011–2022) underperformance and lack of vertical and horizontal synchronization among stockholders are evident. A zero-waste framework is suggested as an ideal vehicle for upgrading the current waste management system into a circular one, backed with legislative, financial, social, and knowledge-based instruments. Successful local campus-scale zero-waste management models, like Qatar University, provide blueprints that can be amplified through a nexus systems thinking approach applied on an inclusive Energy-Water-Food-Waste urban setup.

This chapter examines Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Qatar by scrutinizing the actors, initiatives, and policies at global and national scales. The study presents an overview of Qatar’s national policy on integrating sustainable development into the education system and highlights nation-specific characteristics. The chapter further analyzes major formal, informal, and non-formal educational learning spaces in Qatar which have been harnessing national policies, global trends, and local specificities to effectively serve Qatar National Vision 2030 as well as Qatar’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

For countries that depend on nonrenewable resources such as oil and gas, economic diversification is vital to ensure sustainable and resilient economic development. In July 2008, the government of Qatar launched the long-term national strategy Qatar 2030 (QNV 2030), intending to transform Qatar into a knowledge-based economy capable of attaining sustainable development by 2030. Since then, the Qatari government has invested continually and implemented many policies to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, the private sector, and the advancement of human capital competencies to turn the economy into a knowledge-based one. Indeed, entrepreneurship is a crucial engine for economic development, one of the essential engines of economic diversification and building a knowledge-based economy. Qatar has, therefore, made a significant determination to develop a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem, including establishing key institutions and organizations to support entrepreneurs, such as incubators and financial framework, as evidenced by the increasingly strong performances in key international indices published by multiple global organizations. Nevertheless, despite Qatar’s desire to diversify its economic base, entrepreneurs still have to contend with some challenges. Some of these difficulties are inextricably linked to Qatar’s features as a rentier state. This chapter aims to analyze the present state of the knowledge-based economy in Qatar with a focus on the entrepreneurial ecosystem. It has two objectives. Firstly, the chapter intends to investigate the features and recent development of Qatar's entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, the article intends to examine the dynamics and many challenges that shape this ecosystem.

The strategic vision of the State of Qatar seeks to pursue development while aiming for a balanced approach to the social, human, economic, and environmental pillars of the vision. The legal and governance mechanisms supporting this transition are only effective when implemented, and can be hindered by limited access to data for decision-making. In the last decade, significant changes have taken place, catalyzed by commitments made to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 as well as innovations led by the Qatar Foundation. Yet, as a country with heavy reliance on hydrocarbon resources, the transition toward a more sustainable future involves trade-offs, the options for which present different pathways (from pragmatic to transformative). Climate change will present significant challenges for Qatar, including sea level rise and increasing temperatures, but also impacts on terrestrial and marine biodiversity. Domestically, key areas of the economy (energy, water, food, urban development, waste management) require integrated, systems approaches for moving toward greater sustainability. This future needs to be enabled by new ways of teaching and learning as well as new ways of thinking about and doing business. Not all issues could be covered in this collection (most notably, transportation, heating and cooling systems, desalination, health, and air quality, among others). However, this book has provided a wealth of evidence on diverse subjects, and this concluding chapter brings these diverse options and recommendations together.