0:00:00.628,0:00:03.544 Salaam alaikum. 0:00:03.544,0:00:05.230 Welcome to Doha. 0:00:05.230,0:00:08.632 I am in charge of making this country's food secure. 0:00:08.632,0:00:10.683 That is my job for the next two years, 0:00:10.683,0:00:13.099 to design an entire master plan, 0:00:13.099,0:00:16.632 and then for the next 10 years to implement it -- 0:00:16.632,0:00:18.652 of course, with so many other people. 0:00:18.652,0:00:23.299 But first, I need to talk to you about a story, which is my story, 0:00:23.299,0:00:27.167 about the story of this country that you're all here in today. 0:00:27.167,0:00:30.717 And of course, most of you have had three meals today, 0:00:30.717,0:00:35.250 and probably will continue to have after this event. 0:00:35.250,0:00:39.683 So going in, what was Qatar in the 1940s? 0:00:39.683,0:00:43.883 We were about 11,000 people living here. 0:00:43.883,0:00:50.899 There was no water. There was no energy, no oil, no cars, none of that. 0:00:50.899,0:00:52.294 Most of the people who lived here 0:00:52.294,0:00:54.766 either lived in coastal villages, fishing, 0:00:54.766,0:01:00.716 or were nomads who roamed around with the environment trying to find water. 0:01:00.716,0:01:04.118 None of the glamour that you see today existed. 0:01:04.118,0:01:09.266 No cities like you see today in Doha or Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Kuwait or Riyadh. 0:01:09.266,0:01:11.883 It wasn't that they couldn't develop cities. 0:01:11.883,0:01:13.982 Resources weren't there to develop them. 0:01:13.982,0:01:16.815 And you can see that life expectancy was also short. 0:01:16.815,0:01:18.717 Most people died around the age of 50. 0:01:18.717,0:01:22.516 So let's move to chapter two: the oil era. 0:01:22.516,0:01:25.733 1939, that's when they discovered oil. 0:01:25.733,0:01:30.533 But unfortunately, it wasn't really fully exploited commercially 0:01:30.533,0:01:32.983 until after the Second World War. 0:01:32.983,0:01:35.117 What did it do? 0:01:35.117,0:01:38.417 It changed the face of this country, as you can see today and witness. 0:01:38.417,0:01:42.149 It also made all those people who roamed around the desert -- 0:01:42.149,0:01:45.433 looking for water, looking for food, 0:01:45.433,0:01:49.536 trying to take care of their livestock -- urbanize. 0:01:49.536,0:01:51.500 You might find this strange, 0:01:51.500,0:01:55.349 but in my family we have different accents. 0:01:55.349,0:01:59.349 My mother has an accent that is so different to my father, 0:01:59.349,0:02:04.383 and we're all a population of about 300,000 people in the same country. 0:02:04.383,0:02:07.917 There are about five or six accents in this country as I speak. 0:02:07.917,0:02:11.733 Someone says, "How so? How could this happen?" 0:02:11.733,0:02:13.516 Because we lived scattered. 0:02:13.516,0:02:18.668 We couldn't live in a concentrated way simply because there was no resources. 0:02:18.668,0:02:22.479 And when the resources came, be it oil, 0:02:22.479,0:02:25.533 we started building these fancy technologies 0:02:25.533,0:02:29.183 and bringing people together because we needed the concentration. 0:02:29.183,0:02:31.567 People started to get to know each other. 0:02:31.567,0:02:35.516 And we realized that there are some differences in accents. 0:02:35.516,0:02:38.451 So that is the chapter two: the oil era. 0:02:38.451,0:02:40.566 Let's look at today. 0:02:40.566,0:02:45.292 This is probably the skyline that most of you know about Doha. 0:02:45.292,0:02:46.683 So what's the population today? 0:02:46.683,0:02:48.933 It's 1.7 million people. 0:02:48.933,0:02:51.632 That is in less than 60 years. 0:02:51.632,0:02:57.534 The average growth of our economy is about 15 percent for the past five years. 0:02:57.534,0:03:00.367 Lifespan has increased to 78. 0:03:00.367,0:03:05.176 Water consumption has increased to 430 liters. 0:03:05.176,0:03:08.583 And this is amongst the highest worldwide. 0:03:08.583,0:03:10.750 From having no water whatsoever 0:03:10.750,0:03:16.234 to consuming water to the highest degree, higher than any other nation. 0:03:16.234,0:03:20.000 I don't know if this was a reaction to lack of water. 0:03:20.000,0:03:26.200 But what is interesting about the story that I've just said? 0:03:26.200,0:03:29.383 The interesting part is that we continue to grow 0:03:29.383,0:03:35.983 15 percent every year for the past five years without water. 0:03:35.983,0:03:40.933 Now that is historic. It's never happened before in history. 0:03:40.933,0:03:44.866 Cities were totally wiped out because of the lack of water. 0:03:44.866,0:03:47.382 This is history being made in this region. 0:03:47.382,0:03:49.299 Not only cities that we're building, 0:03:49.299,0:03:54.452 but cities with dreams and people who are wishing to be scientists, doctors. 0:03:54.452,0:03:57.601 Build a nice home, bring the architect, design my house. 0:03:57.601,0:04:03.800 These people are adamant that this is a livable space when it wasn't. 0:04:03.800,0:04:05.769 But of course, with the use of technology. 0:04:05.769,0:04:12.283 So Brazil has 1,782 millimeters per year of precipitation of rain. 0:04:12.283,0:04:15.134 Qatar has 74, and we have that growth rate. 0:04:15.134,0:04:17.150 The question is how. 0:04:17.150,0:04:20.416 How could we survive that? 0:04:20.416,0:04:22.500 We have no water whatsoever. 0:04:22.500,0:04:28.799 Simply because of this gigantic, mammoth machine called desalination. 0:04:28.799,0:04:32.967 Energy is the key factor here. It changed everything. 0:04:32.967,0:04:37.466 It is that thing that we pump out of the ground, we burn tons of, 0:04:37.466,0:04:40.466 probably most of you used it coming to Doha. 0:04:40.466,0:04:43.367 So that is our lake, if you can see it. 0:04:43.367,0:04:45.216 That is our river. 0:04:45.216,0:04:50.558 That is how you all happen to use and enjoy water. 0:04:50.558,0:04:57.184 This is the best technology that this region could ever have: desalination. 0:04:57.184,0:04:59.452 So what are the risks? 0:04:59.452,0:05:01.002 Do you worry much? 0:05:01.002,0:05:04.918 I would say, perhaps if you look at the global facts, 0:05:04.918,0:05:07.509 you will realize, of course I have to worry. 0:05:07.509,0:05:10.018 There is growing demand, growing population. 0:05:10.018,0:05:13.267 We've turned seven billion only a few months ago. 0:05:13.267,0:05:16.759 And so that number also demands food. 0:05:16.759,0:05:19.967 And there's predictions that we'll be nine billion by 2050. 0:05:19.967,0:05:22.823 So a country that has no water 0:05:22.823,0:05:26.474 has to worry about what happens beyond its borders. 0:05:26.474,0:05:28.806 There's also changing diets. 0:05:28.806,0:05:32.872 By elevating to a higher socio-economic level, 0:05:32.872,0:05:35.055 they also change their diet. 0:05:35.055,0:05:38.055 They start eating more meat and so on and so forth. 0:05:38.055,0:05:40.408 On the other hand, there is declining yields 0:05:40.408,0:05:43.106 because of climate change and because of other factors. 0:05:43.106,0:05:48.274 And so someone has to really realize when the crisis is going to happen. 0:05:48.274,0:05:52.089 This is the situation in Qatar, for those who don't know. 0:05:52.089,0:05:55.439 We only have two days of water reserve. 0:05:55.439,0:05:57.723 We import 90 percent of our food, 0:05:57.723,0:06:01.423 and we only cultivate less than one percent of our land. 0:06:01.423,0:06:03.872 The limited number of farmers that we have 0:06:03.872,0:06:07.406 have been pushed out of their farming practices 0:06:07.406,0:06:12.955 as a result of open market policy and bringing the big competitions, etc., etc. 0:06:12.955,0:06:16.206 So we also face risks. 0:06:16.206,0:06:23.389 These risks directly affect the sustainability of this nation and its continuity. 0:06:23.389,0:06:25.907 The question is, is there a solution? 0:06:25.907,0:06:28.089 Is there a sustainable solution? 0:06:28.089,0:06:30.073 Indeed there is. 0:06:30.073,0:06:34.106 This slide sums up thousands of pages of technical documents 0:06:34.106,0:06:36.790 that we've been working on over the past two years. 0:06:36.790,0:06:38.222 Let's start with the water. 0:06:38.222,0:06:41.991 So we know very well -- I showed you earlier -- that we need this energy. 0:06:41.991,0:06:45.089 So if we're going to need energy, what sort of energy? 0:06:45.089,0:06:47.388 A depletable energy? Fossil fuel? 0:06:47.388,0:06:49.783 Or should we use something else? 0:06:49.783,0:06:53.122 Do we have the comparative advantage to use another sort of energy? 0:06:53.122,0:06:57.256 I guess most of you by now realize that we do: 300 days of sun. 0:06:57.256,0:07:02.588 And so we will use that renewable energy to produce the water that we need. 0:07:02.588,0:07:07.989 And we will probably put 1,800 megawatts of solar systems 0:07:07.989,0:07:10.598 to produce 3.5 million cubic meters of water. 0:07:10.598,0:07:12.622 And that is a lot of water. 0:07:12.622,0:07:14.890 That water will go then to the farmers, 0:07:14.890,0:07:17.127 and the farmers will be able to water their plants, 0:07:17.127,0:07:21.257 and they will be able then to supply society with food. 0:07:21.257,0:07:23.374 But in order to sustain the horizontal line -- 0:07:23.374,0:07:26.705 because these are the projects, these are the systems that we will deliver -- 0:07:26.705,0:07:29.339 we need to also develop the vertical line: 0:07:29.339,0:07:34.657 system sustenance, high-level education, research and development, 0:07:34.657,0:07:39.719 industries, technologies, to produce these technologies for application, and finally markets. 0:07:39.719,0:07:45.852 But what gels all of it, what enables it, is legislation, policies, regulations. 0:07:45.852,0:07:48.085 Without it we can't do anything. 0:07:48.085,0:07:49.637 So that's what we are planning to do. 0:07:49.637,0:07:53.168 Within two years we should hopefully be done with this plan 0:07:53.168,0:07:55.135 and taking it to implementation. 0:07:55.135,0:08:01.835 Our objective is to be a millennium city, just like many millennium cities around: 0:08:01.835,0:08:08.970 Istanbul, Rome, London, Paris, Damascus, Cairo. 0:08:08.970,0:08:13.065 We are only 60 years old, but we want to live forever 0:08:13.065,0:08:17.626 as a city, to live in peace. 0:08:17.626,0:08:19.571 Thank you very much. 0:08:19.571,0:08:23.650 (Applause)