At a high-profile ceremony held yesterday evening at the site of Masdar City, near the Abu Dhabi International Airport, General Shaikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, performed the ground breaking for the ambitious city project.

The ceremony was largely attended by Shaikhs, ministers, diplomats and the business elite of the country.

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) CEO Dr. Sultan Al Jaber announced that $22 billion has been allocated for the development of the city. An essential driver for the development of the city is carbon finance. Carbon emissions reduced by Masdar City will be monetized under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism.

Dr Al Jaber said that in addition to full-time residents, Masdar City will seek to attract and encourage collaboration between experts in sustainable transportation, waste management, water and waste-water conservation, green construction, buildings and industrial materials, recycling, biodiversity, climate change, renewable energy and green financial institutions.

“Masdar will maximise the benefits of sustainable technologies, such as photovoltaic cells and concentrated solar power, through an integrated planning and design approach,” he pointed out.

By implementing these technologies, Dr Al Jaber said that Masdar City will save the equivalent of more than $2 billion in oil over the next 25 years, based on today’s energy prices.

The city will also create more than 70,000 jobs and will add more than two per cent to Abu Dhabi’s annual GDP.

“We are creating a city where residents and commuters will live the highest quality of life with the lowest environmental footprint,” he said.

“Masdar City will become the world’s hub for future energy. By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, it will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built.”

The first step in the city’s seven-phase plan is the development of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), the world’s first university dedicated to renewable energy.

Developed in collaboration with MIT and scheduled to open in 2009, MIST will maintain a body of students and professors focused on developing the next generation of solutions to the world’s growing dependence on fossil fuels.

The project is designed by renowned architecture firm Foster & Partners. It is scheduled to be completed in 2016 in conjunction with Abu Dhabi’s 2030 Development Plan.