IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i15p6180-d392635.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable Development and Ecological Deficit in the United Arab Emirates

Author

Listed:
  • Batoul Modarress

    (Department of Engineering Management, American University of Malta, 1013 Bormla, Malta)

  • Alexander Ansari

    (Engineering Management, Seattle University, Washington, DC 98122, USA)

  • Al Ansari

    (Department of Engineering Management, American University of Malta, 1013 Bormla, Malta)

Abstract

The economy of the United Arab Emirates has ranked 27th in the world for decades, which has supported its human development being rated highest among Arab nations. The country, however, has remained oblivious to its ecological deficit. This study explores sources of this deficit by analyzing three sets of data related to its economic growth, human development, and ecological deficit for 29 years from 1990 to 2019. The results of the data analyses indicate that although an increase in the country’s GDP has a high positive correlation with the nation’s human development, the indicator variables related to both measures have a significant reverse influence on the variability of the values for the 333country’s ecological deficit. Validating the statistical results through interviews with ten authorities from various government ministries and the oil industry shows that, when considering the nation’s finite biocapacity, the genesis of its ecological deficit lies in persistent developments that rely on petroleum revenues and the rapid influx of the millions of migrants who are needed to close the skill gaps of United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizens. Although initiatives to reduce the UAE’s ecological footprint have been in place since 2007, the lack of environmental action plans, policies, and enforcing regulations have resulted in the nation’s failure to move toward achieving sustainable development. This has pushed the country toward the brink of ecological bankruptcy.

Suggested Citation

  • Batoul Modarress & Alexander Ansari & Al Ansari, 2020. "Sustainable Development and Ecological Deficit in the United Arab Emirates," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6180-:d:392635
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6180/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/6180/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Daly, Herman E., 1992. "Allocation, distribution, and scale: towards an economics that is efficient, just, and sustainable," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 185-193, December.
    3. Milorad Kovacevic, 2010. "Measurement of Inequality In Human Development - A Review," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2010-35, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
    4. Almansoori, Ali & Betancourt-Torcat, Alberto, 2015. "Design optimization model for the integration of renewable and nuclear energy in the United Arab Emirates’ power system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 234-251.
    5. Ganna Sheremenko & Cesar L Escalante & Wojciech J Florkowski, 2017. "Financial Sustainability and Poverty Outreach: The Case of Microfinance Institutions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 29(1), pages 230-245, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marina V. Vasiljeva & Vadim V. Ponkratov & Larisa A. Vatutina & Maria V. Volkova & Marina I. Ivleva & Elena V. Romanenko & Nikolay V. Kuznetsov & Nadezhda N. Semenova & Elena F. Kireeva & Dmitrii K. G, 2022. "Crude Oil Market Functioning and Sustainable Development Goals: Case of OPEC++-Participating Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-23, April.
    2. Wenxin Deng & Hong Lin & Mu Jiang, 2023. "Research on Bamboo Furniture Design Based on D4S (Design for Sustainability)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-17, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davis, Carlton G. & Langham, Max R., 1995. "Agricultural Indistrialization and Sustainable Development: A Global Perspective," International Working Paper Series 237431, University of Florida, Food and Resource Economics Department.
    2. White, Thomas J., 2007. "Sharing resources: The global distribution of the Ecological Footprint," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 402-410, December.
    3. Kohn, Jorg, 1998. "Thinking in terms of system hierarchies and velocities. What makes development sustainable?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 173-187, August.
    4. Gómez-Baggethun, Erik & de Groot, Rudolf & Lomas, Pedro L. & Montes, Carlos, 2010. "The history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice: From early notions to markets and payment schemes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1209-1218, April.
    5. Davis, Carlton G. & Ballayram, 1994. "Challenges to Integrating Economic and Environmental Policies into Anglo-Caribbean Sustainable Development Agenda: The Case of Agriculture," International Working Paper Series 237429, University of Florida, Food and Resource Economics Department.
    6. Markus Milne & Rob Gray, 2013. "W(h)ither Ecology? The Triple Bottom Line, the Global Reporting Initiative, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 13-29, November.
    7. Muhammad Awais & Tanzila Samin & Muhammad Awais Gulzar & Jinsoo Hwang, 2019. "The Sustainable Development of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor: Synergy among Economic, Social, and Environmental Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-11, December.
    8. Elzbieta Broniewicz & Karolina Ogrodnik, 2021. "A Comparative Evaluation of Multi-Criteria Analysis Methods for Sustainable Transport," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-23, August.
    9. Köhn, Jörg, 1996. "Thinking in Terms of System Hierarchies and Velocites. What makes Development Sustainable?," Thuenen-Series of Applied Economic Theory 04, University of Rostock, Institute of Economics.
    10. Richters, Oliver, 2015. "Integrating Energy Use into Macroeconomic Stock-Flow Consistent Models," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 154764, September.
    11. Louis Dupuy, 2012. "International Trade and Sustainability : A survey," Working Papers hal-00701426, HAL.
    12. Davis, Carlton G., 1994. "Integrating Economic Growth, Equity, and Environmental Assets Components of Sustainable Development in Tropical Agriculture: A Conceptual Framework," International Working Paper Series 237428, University of Florida, Food and Resource Economics Department.
    13. Peter Dobers & Rolf Wolff, 2000. "Competing with ‘soft’ issues – from managing the environment to sustainable business strategies," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(3), pages 143-150, May.
    14. Louis Dupuy, 2012. "International Trade and Sustainability: A survey," Larefi Working Papers 201201, Larefi, Université Bordeaux 4.
    15. Xiaoxu Dong & Cheon Yu & Yun Seop Hwang, 2021. "The Effects of Reverse Knowledge Spillover on China’s Sustainable Development: Sustainable Development Indicators Based on Institutional Quality," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-17, February.
    16. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh & Marjan W. Hofkes, 1997. "A Survey of Economic Modelling of Sustainable Development," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-107/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    17. Ruitenbeek, H. Jack, 1996. "Distribution of ecological entitlements: Implications for economic security and population movement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 49-64, April.
    18. Hubacek, Klaus & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2006. "Changing concepts of 'land' in economic theory: From single to multi-disciplinary approaches," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 5-27, January.
    19. Rennings, Klaus & Wiggering, Hubert, 1997. "Steps towards indicators of sustainable development: Linking economic and ecological concepts," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 25-36, January.
    20. Tina D. Beuchelt & Michael Nassl, 2019. "Applying a Sustainable Development Lens to Global Biomass Potentials," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-26, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:6180-:d:392635. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.