Saudi Arabia announces plan to construct zero-carbon city

Saudi Arabia announces plan to construct zero-carbon city

RIYADH--Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz announced Tuesday an ambitious plan to construct a zero-carbon city built in a 170km straight line, the first major construction project for the futuristic megacity Neom. 

THE LINE, the Saudi Press Agency SPA reported, amounts to a revolution in urban living at NEOM and a blueprint for how people and planet can co-exist in harmony.

It consists, SPA added, of a belt of hyper-connected future communities, without cars and roads and built around nature.

The plan is a direct response to some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity today, including legacy infrastructure, pollution, traffic, and human congestion.

 

THE LINE is the first major urban development in 150 years not designed around roads. (TWITTER)

THE LINE is expected to drive economic diversification, creating about 380,000 new jobs and generating $48 billion that will be added to the kingdom's domestic GDP by 2030. The project itself will cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, Crown Prince Mohoammed told reporters in the north-western city of Al-Ula. 

The announcement for the new project started with a short clip displaying some of human history's biggest technological advancements over the last century, including the moon landing and the creation of the