The emirate has signed up to abide by a list of 10 ‘sustainability principles’ laid out by One Planet Living, a joint initiative between WWF and the UK’s BioRegional Development Group aimed at reducing carbon emissions and encouraging sustainable development. This means WWF and BioRegional should be permitted to monitor all aspects of Abu Dhabi’s economy over the next three years in order to produce a strategy for reducing its ecological footprint. And if this process stalls, Gonçalves says WWF will have no compunction about “blowing the whistle” and providing another dose of adverse publicity for the emirate.

However, he says, Abu Dhabi seems sincere in its desire to see both Masdar and wider environmentally friendly changes in the emirate through to their conclusions, noting that none of the G8 group of the world’s most industrialised – and polluting – nations has yet agreed to subject itself to such tough scrutiny.

“This is going to cost a lot of money and could cause considerable grief for Abu Dhabi, as we are going to be looking through the national accounts pretty rigorously. But this is the only government to have bitten the bullet and signed an agreement. That demonstrates genuine commitment,” Gonçalves says.

There are also positive noises about Masdar from seasoned Gulf watchers, who note that Abu Dhabi is blazing a trail in the region in terms of renewable energy projects.

“The bottom line is that Masdar is a major project, with strong government support, which recognises that the future is not going to be solely based on hydrocarbons,” says Eckart Woertz, programme manager, economics, at the Gulf Research Centre, a Dubai-based independent think tank.

Woertz says it is also important to look beyond Masdar City at the large-scale projects envisaged for electricity production and desalination using solar power, as well as underground carbon sequestration – a hot topic at the moment. “These are applications that could have major implications, not just for future energy use in the UAE, but also globally,” he observes.

The substantial funding and facilities on offer have already attracted a host of international names to sign up for Masdar-related ventures. Among them, BP and Rio Tinto have signed an agreement to carry out a feasibility study for a 500MW hydrogen-powered electricity generation project with associated carbon capture and storage (CCS), while Canada’s SNC-Lavalin has been studying the creation of a CCS network across the emirate. German solar energy pioneer Conergy is bringing its expertise to expand Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy capacity, as well as laying foundations for the development of exportable technology. BP, Shell, Occidental Petroleum, Total, General Electric, Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Rolls-Royce and Imperial College London were among companies signed up as ‘anchor’ partners for the Masdar Initiative at its launch in 2006.

It remains to be seen just how viable Abu Dhabi’s vision of an environmentally friendly technology hub in the desert will turn out to be, given the similar projects taking shape in Europe, the US and the Far East, where skilled labour and large markets are already close at hand. But observers say Abu Dhabi’s leaders should be applauded for the breadth and scale of their ambitions. Woertz notes: “If Abu Dhabi has made a conscious decision to spend its money on this sort of long-term strategic project rather than Ferraris and luxury real estate developments of questionable sustainability, then there is a lot of potential there.”