Abu Dhabi's emphasis on sustainable urban development and its growing status as a global hub for business and tourism will receive a major thrust early next year when the world's top urban planners, decision-makers, mayors and international media will gather in the capital to participate in Global City 2009.

Global City’s innovative format includes several workshops and sessions allowing city administrators and their private sector partners to compare and exchange their experiences and best practices in establishing sustainable urban development policies. The role of cities in reducing carbon emissions, promoting urban energy policy, the economic impact of sustainable development strategies and the use of culture as a driver for sustainability, are just a sample of the subjects that will be debated at Global City.

This year’s program will focus on the challenge of being a sustainable city in a global world, looking at both constraints and opportunities. It will address the key factors of success for a city in the short term as well as in a much longer term, providing a vision of the sustainable and global city.

Among topics covered in the 2009 program:

• Is culture a driver for sustainability?
• Hosting global events, a catalyst for a city sustainable development?
• An academic approach to the globalization of world sustainable cities.
• Environmental innovation for strong economic development.
• Living Laboratories, a new way of creating competitiveness.
• Connecting the unconnected.
• How can immigration significantly contribute to city success? Rethinking multi-culturalism.
• Citizens' partnership and new ecological neighbourhoods.
• Waterfront Investment: A booster for city globalization? How to reconnect port infrastructure to the city.
• From green neighbourhoods to sustainable cities.
• The new ecological cities: learn from the latest experience.
• Liveable cities, the benefit of urban environmental planning
• Disaster resilience cities.
• Security in a growing city.
• Redesigning public realm through public transport strategies.
• How to develop transport that promotes urban density?
• Environmental services and clean technologies: waste, water, energy and transport. What are the constraints and opportunities for cities today?

A half-day think-tank program dedicated to City Leaders
The Leaders’ Summit & Lunch: focused on urban leadership challenges, this closed-door meeting is exclusively for city leaders and by invitation only. It provides an opportunity for them to meet with their international counterparts, share their personal visions of sustainability, and discuss the pressing issues that face their communities.

The Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development (ADCED) and the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) are sponsoring and supporting Global City, which is being brought to this region for the first time by the event's owners, Reed Exhibitions. Global City Abu Dhabi on January 20 and 21 will have sustainability and global warming as key themes. Several hundred delegates are expected to attend the event, including local elected representatives from around the world, and private and public sector players and top consultants.

"Abu Dhabi has taken globally recognized, unique initiatives to support sustainability. The UAE capital is fast emerging as a global city, and the forum will help local and regional urban planners to gain a deeper understanding about urban planning issues and solutions. Sustainability is already a central theme in Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, which is the city's urban structure framework plan," said Falah Al Ahbabi, General Manager of Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC).

Conference website: http://www.globalcityforum.com/