Unveiled in 2017 by Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), Neom is part of “Vision 2030”—his plan to modernize the kingdom and diversify its economy beyond fossil fuels. The country possesses 17 percent of the world’s petroleum reserves, and oil accounts for roughly 40 percent of its economic output. 

But since Neom’s launch, experts have questioned how a project set to house more than nine million people—built from scratch from the proceeds of oil and gas—could meet its extravagant sustainability goals: being carbon-neutral, running entirely on renewables and preserving nature.

Through its flurry of well-marketed projects, Neom advertises many of the false solutions that experts have denounced for years, all while helping Saudi Arabia rebrand itself as a climate champion. Natalie Koch, professor of geography and the environment, calls this increasingly popular communication strategy “sustainability spectacle.”

“Sustainability spectacle is the idea that you would use any kind of spectacular project—spectacular in the sense that it is oversized and grabs a lot of media attention—in order to advertise your sustainability credentials, or some kind of sustainability agenda,” says Koch.

“When you are looking at the Gulf countries, you see that a lot of these sustainability projects are very large, and they’re very loud about them, but they hide the fact that, in fact, the rest of society is not at all sustainable,” she adds.

Read more in the DeSmog article, “How Saudi Arabia’s Neom Giga Project Became a Global Showroom of False Climate Solutions.”