Brown follows Qatar deal with Abu Dhabi clean tech alliance

Just a day after announcing a new joint £250m low carbon investment fund with the Qatari government, UK prime minister Gordon Brown yesterday inked a deal with the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) Masdar clean tech project that will see the two countries co-operate on developing clean energy technologies.

The memorandum of understanding comes a month after Masdar announced it was taking a 20 per cent stake in the 1,000 MW London Array offshore wind project after Shell pulled out earlier this year.

The state-owned investment fund is also building a £14bn zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city in the desert outside Abu Dhabi.

Speaking to a conference of oil executives and government officials in Abu Dhabi as part of his tour of the Middle East, Brown said the partnership between the UK and Masdar would help the oil dependent state diversify its energy supply and continue to prosper as part of a low carbon global economy.

He urged all oil producers to follow Abu Dhabi's lead in investing in alternatives as part of a "shared interest in a more diversified range of energy sources".

He added that the traditional model of oil supplying countries locking horns with oil thirsty countries needed to end.

"That approach has too often had producers unable to plan or invest with confidence for the future, consumers subject to volatile prices, our planet damaged by absence of stable plans for a low-carbon future," said Brown.

The future for energy, he said, lay in developing low-carbon alternatives, including nuclear power and carbon capture and storage technologies.

Abu Dhabi is just one of a number of oil rich Middle East states looking to diversify their economies as they prepare for a long term slackening in oil demand, and while Dubai has focused on construction and tourism Abu Dhabi and Qatar see clean energy as a viable alternative to the oil industry – particularly as it builds on many of the manufacturing and engineering skills developed in the energy industry.