Saudi smart city Neom 'new model for sustainable urban design'
Saudi Arabia’s smart city Neom offers a new model for environmentally-friendly and sustainable urban design, both for the kingdom and the world, said its climate envoy at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. During a panel session titled ‘The Evolution of Urban Life’, Adel bin Ahmed Al Jubeir, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Climate Envoy for Saudi Arabia, said: "The Line will revolutionise the way people look at cities and urban planning. Neom is an attempt to create a city that is environmentally friendly, sustainable, that has a very high quality of life, but virtually no traffic." Earlier, addressing a panel on global tax reform, Alibrahim said: "Under Saudi Vision 2030, we have been focusing on detaching ourselves from traditional sources of revenue, with our economic diversification, to think about more long-term sustainable revenue generation, but also diversifying our sources of growth." During its session titled Deployment in the Industrial Metaverse, Abdullah bin Amer Alswaha, Minister of Communications & Information Technology, said: "The current 2D world that we live in today is not fit for purpose in the 21st century." "I am a big advocate of the metaverse, which is going to be the next wave of how immersive experiences work for consumers, enterprises, and industry. We are bringing together academics, innovators, policymakers and regulators into a sandbox to make sure that they have a safe environment to innovate," he noted.