By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter
Sustainable development does not mean building high rise buildings only, but involves planning for the years ahead when oil and gas reserves are no longer available or become redundant because of new technology, a leading expert said yesterday.
Paul Sillitoe, Professor of Anthropology at Durham University, made the remarks yesterday at the launch of a book he edited, Sustainable Development: An Appraisal from the Gulf Region, at Qatar University’s Centre for Humanities and Social Science Research.
The professor, who was a former Shell Chair in Sustainable Development at QU between 2009 and 2012, said the need for the Qatar-centric book on sustainability development arose from the fact that very little work had been done on the subject when he began his research on the topic.
“When I became the head of the Shell chair, I noticed that there was very little understanding about sustainability related issues in Qatar. By sustainability, people generally thought it meant building high rises and these kinds of things,” he said.
He said that after QU helped him organise and fund a conference on his favourite subject, he came up with the idea of writing a detailed book about it which could also benefit students and teachers alike with examples from Qatar itself.
There are several chapters in the book that focus on sustainable development issues in the State of Qatar, some of which are also co-authored by Qatari experts.
“We wanted to involve as many Arab, especially Qatari colleagues in the book as possible,” he said. It is a large book with around 500 pages.
Sillitoe said that he didn’t see any country in the GCC as a model for sustainable development, simply because all of them had been ‘sucked’ into a kind of development that might not be necessarily best suited to their needs. “One can understand the concern in this region to be seen a major player in the world. Part of that drive is to imitate the West, which we see in these high rise buildings (but it) may not be the most appropriate thing here.”
He said that countries in the region were caught in a dilemma. “Their economies are driven by oil and gas and no one would want to put themselves out of business, particularly when it so lucrative. On the other hand, all the governments are aware of the issues. QNV 2030 itself is very clear about sustainability as an issue.”
Sillitoe said he hoped that all the concerns highlighted in the QNV2030 were acted upon.
He said that Qatar faced several challenges apart from the ‘astonishing’ temperature. “The numbers that live here are way, way beyond what the actual country could support. What is fuelling all of this is oil and gas, which some people call non-renewable resource, while I call it unsustainable.”
Sillitoe warned that even if the oil and gas reserves lasted for hundreds of years, one should not forget that one day these would end. Moreover, there were also chances that before such reserves got depleted there could be new sources of energy and technology in the future that might make oil and gas redundant.
“I’m not saying anything new here. The government here seems to be quite aware of its challenges. The QNV 2030 also makes it quite clear that the leadership is aware of all this,” Sillitoe said.
He highlighted the need for spreading more awareness about the issue among the general public and for countries to make more efforts to make their economies and development more ‘sustainable’ in the long run.