Last night the CBC broadcast a documentary on Dubai (Dubai - Miracle or Mirage). It was a fascinating documentary that showed how the city has grown from a unremarkable little village in the early 1950's to a world class city today. Dubai has managed to do a lot with the relatively minor amount of oil money they have generated over the years. Unfortunately, the documentary didn't delve into Dubai's Oil Industry very much. Dubai will likely be one of the first cities (emirates) in the mid east to run out of oil. According to their own website, they expecte the oil reserves to be exhausted within 20 years. That is, of course, the most optimistic scenario. The oil majors have already mostly given up on Dubai. Even the IEA (normally known as a fount of optimism) is skeptical of Dubai's official reserve estimates. If you watched the documentary knowing about Dubai's poor oil prospects, you might still be impressed with Dubai's efforts to transition their economy away from oil. As recently as 1994, 24% of Dubai's GDP was from the oil sector. Last year the oil sector accounted for just 5.1% GDP (5.6% in 2005). While this is largely due to declining oil production, Dubai has become the jewel of the middle east as far as tourism goes. Dubai caters to the super rich as well as to the more ordinary run of the mill rich.According to the CBC documentary, Dubai's prospects seem very good. However Dubai could be ground zero for the combined impact of peak oil and global warming. Dubai is only 16m above sea level with much of the built up area right on the shore line. Dubai may not have to wait for rising sea levels to swamp the city. Tropical cyclones could become more common and severe in the Arabian Gulf. A cyclone reach the Arabian Gulf just this year and caused more than a ripple in the world oil markets. Dubai's growing tourism industry could be an early casualty of declining worldwide oil production. While the countries of the middle east will likely have sufficient oil supplies to support their tourism industry for years to come, the rich countries that import oil will likely put heating their homes and growing food ahead of mass tourism. It is unlikely Dubai can sustain a tourism industry on the back of just the oil wealth in the mid-east.
velomobility
