Qatar, a country facing immense ecological pressures due to its limited resources of water, high dependency on fossil fuels, air pollution, has in recent years begun to demonstrate an increased environmental consciousness by working for solutions for the ecological challenges it is facing. Qatar’s efforts to hold a sustainable Fifa World Cup and the promise of leaving behind ‘a sustainable legacy’ reflect this environmental consciousness. Before we explore this promise of sustainable legacy in the context of WC, let us take a step back and first better understand Qatar’s approach to comprehending and resolving its environmental struggles. Understanding this approach will allow us to better evaluate Qatar’s progress and efforts in hosting a sustainable WC which will be analyzed in the coming blog posts.
Greg Garrad, a sustainability expert and one of the most prominent voices in the area of environmental criticism, in his book Ecocriticism, identifies different environmental ‘positions’ that have a distinct understanding of environmental crisis and differ in their approach to devise solutions. Among the contrasting positions he emphasizes, I argue that aspects of Qatar’s attitude towards its environmental strains best fit the position Garrad (2012) describes as ‘social ecologist’. This position rejects the notion of limits of natural resources and holds the view that these limits are “a function of the will and means of capital: the purposes that guide production, and the technologies that facilitate it” (pg.31). Hence, the approach of this position to overcome resource scarcity is to use the power of technological innovations to replace harmful industrial processes and to change the aim of production from ‘accumulation of wealth’ to meet needs of the people. This position stresses that “ecological problem of limits is produced by capital’s structural need for perpetual growth…” (pg.31). While Qatar does understand the scarcity of its water resources, it has long tried to combat this scarcity with innovative technology, the latest being ‘Multi Effect distillation’ (MED) to desalinate water as desalination is the main source of Qatar’s water. A research director at Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) which is working to implement this technology comments, “Our work focuses on water resources as well as new materials and methods to make it more sustainable and more efficient to produce the water we need”. She describes innovative thinking coupled with advanced technology is required to achieve the goal of water security (Huda Al Sulati). QEERI is also working to implement technology like membrane bioreactors to process water at gas and oil fields, produced during gas/oil extraction. This demonstrates that Qatar does not take ecological limits of fossil fuels into consideration and rather manipulates an already strained resource to overcome water scarcity. Furthermore, Qatar Petroleum, which is the largest state-owned energy company, also depends heavily on technologies and improvements instead of recognizing the limits of fossil fuels as an energy resource. I argue that this dependence of Qatar on advanced technological solutions to reshape the scarcity of resources prevents implementation of policies that limit the use of these resources both by the state and public and demand change in habits of people. This reliance of Qatar on capital and technology to manage the limits of its resources strongly reflects a social ecologist stance to environmental difficulties.
Another significant feature of the social ecologist position as highlighted by Garrad is the view that environmental problems result from social complexities and as such it is difficult to separate environmental problems from social problems (p. 32). This connects to the concept of environmental justice which refers to the just and equal distribution of resources for people independent of their socioeconomic status and extending to future generations as well. This concept is firmly embedded in Qatar’s environmental consciousness in its 2030 National Vision and is also one of the goals of the sustainable WC as Qatar aims to manage its environmental problems and use resources to provide for current generations in a way that does not comprise the needs of the future generations and decreases negative environmental impact. To achieve QNV 2030, the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS) has put forth 17 Sustainable Development Goals, one of which is “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture” (SDGs Report, p.) This demonstrates the social ecologist position of tackling the social problem of lack of food and proper nutrition by improving local agricultural and livestock production practices to provide food security for current people as well as future generations. Qatar has achieved much in this area through Hassad company which invests in livestock across the globe and through Global Project Development Company which works to implement more efficient local agriculture techniques. MDPS saying, “sustainable development can only be achieved when there is social progress, economic growth and environmental change…” emphasizes Qatar’s social ecologist stance as it ties together all the significant views of this position. Qatar trusts that social progress is important to resolve environmental crisis and advanced technologies help to manipulate the ecological limits of resources and bring economic gain. All of these together make way for sustainable development, which will decrease environmental degradation and provide intergenerational resource justice, according to Qatar’s approach to its environment.
Now that we have understood Qatar’s ecological position, it raises the question of how effective this social ecologist approach to the environment is and will it allow Qatar to achieve the sustainable legacy it has promised? In the coming blog posts, I will explore Qatar’s efforts towards a sustainable WC, the cultural significance of a ‘green’ WC and will use Qatar’s social ecologist position along with additional environmental humanities literature to offer new insight into Qatar’s promise of sustainable legacy in the context of the WC.
