Dear Co-Ambassadors, you know very well that we have not been living sustainably on our Earth. Every year we overuse the natural renewable resources which the mother earth can renew in a year. If we start afresh each year on 01-Jan & calculate the mankind usage v/s. natural renewal on a daily basis than in 2015 on Aug 13 our usage exceeded the renewal capacity. It implies that mankind on our planet consumed all of the natural resources possible for the year in 8 Months & 13 Days. Then what we do in rest 3 Months & 18 Days. We use overdraft from nature.

This overdraft account is in place since 1970 i.e. over 45 years & is a very precarious situation. Mother Nature is doing its job diligently day after day, Sun rises & sets, Rain comes, sunshine comes but we greedy people overuse the facilities. It is our duty to give back to the nature so that it can regenerate its resources. It took millions of years for this beautiful planet to be built & the way we are destroying the eco-system it?ll take much lesser for complete extinction of natural resources.

A major Environmental conference named ?Ecocities conference? is being held in Abu Dhabi in order to focus on building cities that are as resource efficient as possible. How we should build for the future, is the hot question of the day.

The reasons of focus on the cities are:

 A major part of emission is generated by cities [60 to 80 percent of the total emission]     

A major population lives in cities [ in UAE for example 90 percent of population lives in cities]  

Therefore, If we decide to change the planet, we need to change how we build & coexist in Urban areas.

Abu Dhabi & Dubai are rapidly working towards creating EcoCity. It?ll be city of the future with confluence of new technologies, unprecedented sharing of knowledge, faster processing and endless worldwide innovation. All of which has created a new wave in urban design. This was stated by Reem Al Hashimy, Minister of State and director general of EXPO 2020 Dubai Bureau.

She further assured that EXPO 2020, of which Dubai is the Host City, will be the most sustainable, the world has ever seen. Each & every element from Tickets, Transport & Infrastructure, building process, cooling, water supply & waste management during Expo 2020 will be Eco-Friendly.

By creating such eco-friendly cities it will be possible to push the earth?s overshoot day further back into the year, until we reach a point where the earth is producing enough for our consumption. It is therefore clear that if we are to push Earth Overshoot Day back into September, October, and then keep going until we no longer have an overshoot day, cities must be at the heart of the solution.