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Spend a few days prowling the packed exhibition floor of Abu Dhabi's World Future Energy Summit, and you might forget that the global economy is suffering through an existential crisis that has overshadowed just about everything else - including climate change. Booths showing off the technology of Chinese solar companies and German wind businesses buzz with visitors. Conference panels on biofuels or green design are half-empty, but that's only because attendees are busier cutting deals...
Over 16,000 visitors came to the summit, nearly 50% more than the previous year. And at the center of it is Abu Dhabi's own Masdar Initiative - named after the city of Masdar, a newly built green metropolis designed to be a center for clean technology. Even though the petroleum-rich emirate is suffering through plummeting oil prices - now a little over $40 a barrel, down a hundred dollars from a half a year ago - its leaders say they remain committed to expanding Masdar. "The current financial crisis has absolutely no impact on our planned projects," says Sultan Ahmed...
...That left an opening for Hamas' supporters. On Jan. 16, as the Israeli assault on Gaza still raged, Qatar, which has forged a role as regional mediator by deftly balancing relations with Syria and Iran as well as the U.S., stepped in to host a summit. Saudi Arabia, which resents being upstaged by its tiny neighbor, refused to attend. Egypt and Jordan stayed away too, ensuring that most of the participants were firmly in the Hamas camp...
...summit, Syrian President Bashar Assad demanded the scrapping of the Arab peace initiative, a seven-year-old Saudi plan that offers collective Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for the return of occupied territory and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Assad's call was intended to signal anger toward Israel, but it also served as a swipe at the Saudi architects of the initiative, with whom he is feuding...
...apparent nod to that sentiment, King Abdullah struck a conciliatory note on Monday when he told the Kuwait summit that the Arab peace initiative, his own brainchild, could be withdrawn, a shift that indicates the moderates may be losing the argument. "Israel has to understand that the choice between war and peace will not always stay open and that the Arab peace initiative that is on the table today will not stay on the table," he said...