High temples of consumption (Guardian book review)

Over the past half century, Abu Dhabi and Dubai have emerged from obscurity to global prominence as the richest and fastest-growing cities in the world, respectively. In March, 2007, Forbes Magazine declared Abu Dhabi the richest city in the world. Its 420,000 citizens, who sit on one-tenth of the world's oil, are worth about $17m apiece. Dubai, much less favoured with oil reserves, has speculated on its strategic location to siphon its neighbours' oil wealth into its own economy through trade, finance and leisure. The ultimate service economy, Dubai lives on momentum, never daring to slow lest it be overtaken by its rivals.

The high standard of living has come at a price to the environment. By 2008, the Worldwide Fund for Nature's Living Planet report ranked the United Arab Emirates (of which both Abu Dhabi and Dubai are member states) at the top of the list of carbon emissions, with an ecological footprint of 9.5 global hectares per person – exceeding the United States (number two, at 9.4 hectares) and Britain (5.3 hectares), and more than triple the global average of 2.7 hectares. The report claimed that if everyone consumed at the same rate as Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it would take four and a half times the Earth's resources to provide for them.

It wasn't always so. On the eve of the discovery of oil in the late 1950s, both city states had populations numbering in the tens of thousands, with no electricity or paved roads. In 1971, when the seven sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf formed the federation known as the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi and Dubai were only beginning to reap the benefits of their oil wealth. By the start of the 21st century, both cities had high-rise skylines to rival Shanghai and Hong Kong. It is hard to think of another part of the world that has experienced such rapid change in modern times.