This article is published in association with United Nations.
The past 11 years have been the warmest in the modern era, while oceans continue to heat up, too, says the UN weather agency.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed on Wednesday that 2025 was one of the three warmest years on record, continuing the streak of extraordinary global temperatures.
After analysing eight international datasets, the organization said that global average surface temperatures last year were 1.44°C above the 1850 to 1900 average.
Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year.
Warm despite La Niña
The fact that 2025 was very slightly cooler than the three-year average from 2023 is partly explained by the La Niña phenomenon, which is associated with colder weather.
But WMO insisted that any temporary cooling from La Niña is not reversing the long-term trend of warmer temperatures.
“The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.
The organization added that the high temperatures on land and sea last year helped to fuel extreme weather, including heatwaves, heavy rainfall and deadly tropical cyclones, underlining the need for early warning systems.
Ocean heat
Citing a separate study, WMO highlighted that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record last year, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system.
Regionally, about 33 per cent of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions, while about 57 per cent fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins.
WMO will provide full details of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat and other trends, in its State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March.
Solar power has a dark side: panels are still built to be thrown away, and we risk creating a mountain of waste that locks away valuable minerals.
The world already faces up to 250 million tonnes of solar waste by 2050, as panels installed during the solar boom of the 2000s and 2010s reach the end of their service life.
These panels were not designed to be repaired, refurbished, or disassembled. Indeed, current recycling processes mainly extract glass and aluminium, while the materials that carry the highest economic and strategic value such as silver, copper and high-grade silicon are generally lost in the process.
The industry now faces a narrow window to rethink. Without a shift in design, the energy transition could end up shifting environmental pressures rather than reducing them. Building low-carbon technology is essential, but low-carbon does not inherently mean sustainable.
A booming industry designed for the dump
The average lifespan of solar modules is about 25 to 30 years. This means a massive wave of installations from the early 2000s is now reaching the end of its life cycle. Countries with mature solar markets like Germany, Australia, Japan and the US are already seeing a sharp increase in the number of panels being taken out of service.
The challenge lies not only in the scale of the waste but also in the very design of the panels. To survive decades of weather, solar panels are built by stacking layers of glass, cells and plastic, then bonding them together so tightly with strong adhesives that they become a single, inseparable unit.
You can think of a solar panel like an industrial-strength sandwich. VectorMine / shutterstock
But this durability has a downside. Because the layers are so tightly bonded, they are exceptionally difficult to peel apart, effectively preventing us from fixing the panels when they break or recovering materials when they are thrown away (those materials could generate US$15 billion (£11 billion) in economic value by 2050).
The limits of recycling
In any case, recycling should be a last resort because it destroys much of the embedded value. That’s because current processes are crude, mostly shredding panels to recover cheap aluminium and glass while losing high value metals.
For instance, while silver represents only 0.14% of a solar panel’s mass, it accounts for over 40% of its material value and about 10% of its total cost. Yet it is rarely recovered when recycling. During standard recycling, solar panels are crushed. The silver is pulverised into microscopic particles that become mixed with glass, silicon and plastic residues, making it too difficult and expensive to separate.
That’s why strategies that aim to extend the life of solar panels – such as repair and reuse – are vastly superior to recycling. They preserve the value of these products, and avoid the massive energy cost of industrial shredding. They keep valuable materials in circulation and reduce the need to extract new raw materials. They can even generate new revenue for owners. But this circular vision is only viable if solar panels are designed to be taken apart and repaired.
Designing panels for a circular future
Moving towards such an approach means redesigning panels so they can be repaired, upgraded and ultimately disassembled without damaging or destroying the components inside. The idea of designing for disassembly, common in other sectors, is increasingly essential for solar too.
Instead of permanent adhesives and fully laminated layers, panels can be built using modular designs and reversible connections. Components such as frames, junction boxes and connectors should be removable, while mechanical fixings or smart adhesives that release only at high temperatures can allow glass and cells to be separated more easily.
Standardising components and improving documentation would further support repairers, refurbishers and recyclers throughout a panel’s life cycle. In short, the next generation of solar panels must be designed to last longer, be repairable, and use fewer critical materials — not simply to maximise short-term energy output.
Digital tools can help
If you want to repair or recycle a panel years from now, you’ll need to know what materials it contains, what adhesives were used and how it was assembled. Digital tools can help here by storing information, essentially acting like a car’s logbook or a patient’s medical record.
One promising example is the EU’s new Digital Product Passport. These passports will include guidance on repair options, disassembly, hazardous substances, lifecycle history and end-of-life handling. They will be introduced progressively for priority product groups from 2027, with further expansion to many other products, expected towards around 2030.
The Digital Product Passport acts as a static “ingredients list” for a solar panel. It shows what a panel is made of and how it should be handled. Digital twins, by contrast, function more like a real-time monitoring system.
Continuously updated with performance data, they can signal when a panel is under-performing, has become too dusty, or needs repairing. Used together, these tools can help technicians identify which parts can be be repaired or reused and ensure solar panels are safely dismantled at the end of their life.
However, even the best digital twin isn’t much use if the panel itself is glued shut and designed for the dump. Without panels that are built to be repaired or taken apart, digitalisation will offer only marginal benefits.
Digital tools also have their own environmental footprint, from sensors to data storage, which makes it even more important that they support genuinely repairable designs rather than compensate for poor ones. We must rethink how we design solar panels right now, before today’s solar boom locks in tomorrow’s waste problem.
Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower surpasses 80 floors, advancing towards becoming the world’s first kilometre-high building by 2028
The skyline along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast is experiencing significant transformation as the Jeddah Tower officially moves past the 80-floor mark.
The important milestone, confirmed on 6 January, 2026, signals that the world’s first “kilometre-high” structure is no longer a distant concept, but a rapidly advancing reality shaped by engineering excellence and logistical coordination.
Following a seven-year pause that began in 2018, the project – formerly known as the Kingdom Tower – resumed full-scale operations in January 2025. Since then, the construction site has become a centre of industrial activity, advancing at what engineers describe as a “blistering” pace.
The Jeddah Tower serves as the centrepiece of the broader Jeddah Economic City, a 57-million-square-foot development designed to reposition the Kingdom as a premier global hub for business and luxury tourism.
Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, the firm behind Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the structure is engineered to reach a final height of at least 1,008 metres.
Jeddah Tower will be the world’s tallest
Overcoming unprecedented physical constraints
Achieving such verticality requires overcoming unprecedented physical constraints.
The Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) was rehired in late 2024 under a SR 7.2bn (£1.5bn/US$2bn) contract. Following their return in January 2025, SBG representatives note that resuming a “paused” megastructure presented immense technical challenges.
At the recommencement ceremony, the group emphasise their commitment to Vision 2030 goals, stating the project is now “utilising advanced ‘pumpcrete’ technology capable of delivering high-performance concrete to heights never before reached in human history.”
According to Thornton Tomasetti, the project’s structural engineers, the central core and flanking wings indicate more than 50% of the total concrete work is now complete. The current delivery schedule is notably aggressive, with crews adding a new floor approximately every three to four days.
In a technical update released on 6 January, 2026, Thornton Tomasetti confirmed the tower is on track to reach its 100th floor by February.
The companty highlights the structural core is performing exactly as modelled in wind-tunnel tests, state: “The Jeddah Tower project advanced strongly in 2025… our team is pairing innovation with advanced computational modeling to ensure the structure withstands the unique wind forces at 1,000 metres.”
The tower’s “three-petal” footprint is not merely aesthetic; it is a critical aerodynamic feature designed to shed wind vortices and reduce structural sway at extreme altitudes.
The observatory terrace
Managing complexity at unprecedented scale
Managing the sheer scale of the site falls to Turner Construction, which took over project management in March 2025. It describes the site as “one of the most complex construction environments on Earth,” requiring precise coordination between the tower’s construction and the surrounding infrastructure of Jeddah Economic City.
Perhaps the most technically demanding aspect is the vertical transport system. Finnish elevator specialists KONE are installing 59 lifts, including five double-decker units.
KONE describes the Jeddah Tower as the ultimate “proving ground” for their UltraRope technology, states that the elevators will travel at speeds exceeding 10 metres per second, using “carbon-fibre cores to eliminate the weight issues associated with traditional steel cables in supertall buildings.”
Delivery timeline and strategic importance
The completion of the Jeddah Tower, currently slated for August 2028, is a cornerstone of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, serving as a symbol of the nation’s economic diversification and technical ambition.
Talal Ibrahim Al Maiman, CEO of the Jeddah Economic Company (JEC)
Talal Ibrahim Al Maiman, CEO of the Jeddah Economic Company (JEC), remarked during the 80th-floor celebrations: “Jeddah Tower will serve as a beacon of innovation and a catalyst for growth… Today’s progress represents the realization of a vision that was years in the making.”
At its final height, the Jeddah Tower will stand roughly 173 metres taller than the Burj Khalifa, claiming the crown of the world’s tallest building. It will house a luxury hotel, high-end residences and the world’s highest observation deck, featuring a cantilevered “sky terrace” overlooking the Red Sea.
While the tower is currently the Kingdom’s most prominent project, it is part of a wider vertical race; plans are already in motion for the Rise Tower in Riyadh – a £4bn (US$5.3bn) proposal aimed at reaching a staggering two kilometres in height.
For now, however, attention remains on Jeddah, as the construction sector watches the first kilometre-high landmark take shape along the Red Sea coast.
Shaping the Future of Construction in the Middle East
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GCP Construction Chemicals becomes the new Chryso. Born from the strategic alliance between Chryso and GCP, our new brand embodies the best of both companies. It symbolizes our journey and our future in the field of construction specialty chemicals. Courtesy of Chrysso Saint-Gobain.
Dubai is pushing forward with cutting-edge construction technologies—from fibre-reinforced concrete systems to large-format 3D printing—while regulators and industry leaders work to balance innovation with safety and long-term performance.
In a hurry? Here are the key points:
Dubai is rapidly adopting next-generation technologies such as Apis Cor’s 3D-printing systems, Bekaert’s Dramix steel fibres, and GCP’s STRUX macro-fibres to modernize construction.
These solutions promise cleaner sites, faster project delivery, reduced rebar use, and lower embodied carbon across major developments.
Regulators emphasize that innovation must advance alongside rigorous safety, testing, and performance verification to ensure resilient, code-compliant structures.
Dubai has rapidly positioned itself as one of the world’s most ambitious testbeds for next-generation construction technologies, advancing a built-environment agenda that prioritizes speed, safety, and sustainability at scale. Over the past two years—particularly through 2024 and 2025—the emirate has accelerated the adoption of innovations such as large-format 3D concrete printing by robotics companies like Apis Cor, advanced fibre-reinforced systems from suppliers including Bekaert with its Dramix 4D and GCP Applied Technologies’ STRUXmacro-fibres,as well as self-healing admixtures and optimized digital mix-design platforms. These technologies are no longer theoretical experiments; they are being promoted for deployment across industrial flooring, infrastructure tunnels, precast modules, and residential construction. Early use cases promise cleaner construction sites, faster delivery, reduced reliance on conventional reinforcement, and lower embodied carbon in structural elements.
Yet progress requires precision. As Ihab Bassiouni of Dubai Municipality noted during a panel at The Big 5:
“It’s very delicate… how to balance between both. It’s not easy,” referring to the challenge of encouraging innovation while ensuring public safety, regulatory compliance, and long-term performance.
The region’s authorities now face the task of validating emerging systems—whether steel-fiber-reinforced concrete used to replace part of the rebar in foundations, synthetic macrofibres introduced to streamline megaproject flooring, or 3D-printed structural walls produced in hours rather than days. The Middle East’s construction boom makes this balancing act especially urgent: as the sector embraces transformative technologies, regulators must ensure that safety and durability evolve just as quickly.
The Role of Standards in Enabling Safe Innovation
The session was moderated by Mohamed Amer, Managing Director – MENA, International Code Council (ICC), who opened the discussion by emphasizing the role of standards and performance-based design in enabling safe innovation. Amer highlighted the ICC’s responsibility in codes, testing, and certification, noting ongoing collaborations with ACI on low-carbon cement criteria and emerging materials.
Bassiouni emphasized that Dubai’s building code already supports innovation through performance-based provisions, allowing new technologies to be approved even when not explicitly covered in prescriptive rules.
“We give the opportunity to material producers… to create new products and get them used in concrete as an alternative to the prescribed fixed designs,” he added.
Exemplary projects: Dubai’s innovation drive is already visible on the ground — from the Dubai Municipality office printed on-site by Apis Cor in 2019, which showcased rapid, large-format 3D printing for municipal buildings; to Expo City Dubai’s 2024 deployment of Bekaert’s Dramix® 4D fibres in large floor-on-ground areas to reduce rebar, improve crack control and lower embodied carbon; and while GCP Applied Technologies’ STRUX® macro-fibres are actively marketed and supplied into the UAE market and used internationally in high-performance slabs, a publicly documented, named UAE project citing STRUX in press materials is not available at this time and we recommend vendor confirmation for a UAE-specific case.
Understanding the BSA: Building System Approval Process
Dubai Municipality, one of the main governing bodies over the city of Dubai, operates the Building System Approval (BSA) process, which enables comprehensive testing and evaluation of innovative systems through documented research, third-party assessments, and pilot projects. He noted that the authority is introducing an “in-principle approval” stage—a pre-evaluation mechanism allowing system owners to obtain early technical feedback before investing in full-scale pilots or manufacturing facilities.
However, Bassiouni underscored that regulation alone is not enough. The municipality is actively looking to incorporate a new innovative platform designed to bring regulators, academia, consultants, manufacturers, and the public together.
“Everyone will be part of the whole process,” he said, explaining that this collaborative environment, combined with industry education and sandbox testing spaces, will speed up adoption and reduce uncertainty.
Many engineers, he observed:
“are not aware of new technologies because they are busy with their day-to-day jobs,” making education a crucial priority.
(Left) Flooring: Whether it’s daily traffic, forklifts, robots or even the heaviest of containers, steel fiber floors…; (Right) Precast: Sewer pipes, electric cabins, utility vaults…steel fiber reinforcement is not bound by form. Courtesy of Bekaert.
ACI’s Contribution to Concrete Knowledge and Standards
Also on the panel was Ahmad Mhanna, Director, Middle East / North Africa Region at ACI, who described how the organization’s century-long history is rooted in industry expertise and continuous evolution.
“We heavily depend on our members… to develop these standards,” Mhanna said, noting that ACI now maintains more than “35,000 pages of concrete knowledge” spanning material science, structural design, construction, repair, resilience, and sustainability.
He highlighted ACI 318—the world’s leading structural concrete design code—as an example of flexibility and innovation-readiness. When a material or system is not covered explicitly, Mhanna explained:
“It allows the use of that material or system in collaboration with the building official and the system owner.”
This pathway, often used alongside ICC acceptance criteria, allows innovations to enter the market without compromising safety.
Shifting Toward Resilience and Whole-Life Performance
Mhanna also addressed ACI’s strategic shift toward resilience and whole-life performance. A resilient structure, he noted, is one that can recover its functionality after a disruptive event—an increasingly important consideration in modern codes. He stressed that long-term operational savings and durability benefits often outweigh higher upfront material costs.
But the biggest barrier, Mhanna argued, is not technology but perception.
“Many engineers don’t have enough background… they deal with it as a new material,” he said, pointing out that solutions such as steel fiber-reinforced concrete have existed for more than 50 years and are globally validated across tunnels, slabs, precast elements, and industrial projects.
Adding the manufacturer’s perspective, Ahmad Mandalawi, Regional Structural and Specification Engineer, Bekaert, reinforced the need for industry-wide education and early involvement of system owners in design. He explained that engineers often hesitate to approve fiber-reinforced systems simply because they fall outside their traditional training or because codes do not yet feature abundant examples. Owners, he added, tend to compare materials “like-for-like” on price rather than examining lifecycle value. He urged stakeholders to focus on “the total cost of ownership,” including reduced construction timelines, labor savings, corrosion mitigation, and long-term durability.
Fiber-Reinforced Concrete in Dubai’s Landmark Projects
Mandalawi said that Dubai Metro Blue Line extension, where steel fiber reinforcement was used in segmental tunnel linings, has seen faster installation and substantial reductions in embodied carbon. He also cited the Expo City townhouses, where switching from traditional rebar to fully fiber-reinforced slabs resulted in up to 30% lower CO₂ emissions, 50% fewer steel bars, and 15–20% total cost savings, all without compromising structural performance.
All panelists have agreed that innovation does not have to come at the expense of safety. With performance-based codes, rigorous testing frameworks, and stronger collaboration between regulators, standards bodies, consultants, and manufacturers, the Middle East is well-positioned to lead a new era of sustainable, efficient, and resilient construction.
Buildings, illuminated, water, nature, waterfront, skyscrapers, skyline, city lights, cityscape, city view, urban, urban landscape, metropolitan, Dubai city, lights, night, reflection, night photography by Pexels via pixabay
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Why smart cities must become integrated urban ecosystems
Nearly half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, with nearly 4 billion people calling cities home.
As urban populations continue to grow, cities face challenges such as ageing infrastructure and rising demand for energy.
Innovation and collaboration are key to building integrated smart cities for a more sustainable and connected world.
The future of cities depends on the reinvention of how we envision, build and operate communities. We are embracing that responsibility with optimism and a firm belief that integrated smart cities can create a more sustainable and connected world.
This represents an extraordinary shift from just decades ago. Cities are now at the centre of humanity’s social, economic and environmental future. As urban populations continue to grow, cities face mounting challenges, including ageing infrastructure, rapidly rising demand for energy, and ever-changing human expectations for digital connectivity and an increased quality of life.
As a result, smart cities have naturally become an important focal point for many sectors, but discussions still remain dominated by technology companies. While digital platforms, internet of things (IoT) devices and AI are all essential components of urban innovation, they alone cannot constitute the complex machine that is the modern city.
Smart cities rely on interplay of multiple systems
Urban environments inevitably rely on the interplay of infrastructure, energy, buildings, mobility and water management – systems that must be conceived, built and operated with precision and long-term stewardship. This is why we, at GS E&C, believe that the future of smart cities requires not only technological innovation, but also the deep engineering, construction and operational expertise that firms like ours have been refining for decades.
The construction industry is at an inflection point, as well. The traditional EPC model – design, build and hand over – no longer aligns with how modern cities function or what today’s society demands. Buildings and infrastructure now generate continuous data.
For example, housing systems interact dynamically with energy and environmental conditions, and people increasingly expect personalized services embedded throughout their daily lives. The boundary between digital and physical systems has blurred, transforming cities into networks that change and evolve in real time.
This convergence reveals a fundamental strategic direction for us. Construction firms must evolve into long-term service providers. The future of urban development lies not in isolated projects, but in integrated ecosystems that require continuous operation and innovation through reinvention.
Urgent need to reshape how urban systems impact environment
Operational emissions from buildings alone reached nearly 9.8 billion tons of CO₂ in 2023. This means that everything in this industry, from the materials we use to the way we operate buildings and infrastructure, is imperative to addressing climate change.
Cities occupy just a small fraction of Earth’s land mass, yet their energy use and emissions will determine the trajectory of the whole planet. Firms like ours have a responsibility – and simultaneously, an extraordinary opportunity – to reshape how urban systems impact the environment.
This evolution is the foundation of our strategic transformation. We aim to shift from a project-based general contractor to a total service provider capable of integrating planning, construction, technology and long-term operation. Our goal is to create urban environments that are not only more efficient and sustainable, but also more connected and resilient.
Integrated vision redefines how smart cities work
To guide this transition, GS E&C developed Life Weaver, the company’s integrated vision for smart cities. Life Weaver is more than just a technological blueprint; it is a new philosophy for how cities should function.
It rests on five principles: harmonized flow of energy, mobility and data; innovation emerging from urban challenges; invisible technology that enhances human desires and creativity; ecological co-evolution with natural systems; and integrated experiences that dissolve the boundaries between services and spaces.
These principles redefine what a city can be – an adaptive ecosystem that is both sustainable and intuitive. Life Weaver envisions urban environments where energy circulates cleanly and efficiently, mobility networks reduce friction and services anticipate the needs of the residents. Technology becomes a seamless backdrop, empowering people without overwhelming them.
To make this vision a reality, we are working on building the capabilities required for operating smart cities. Our Zero Energy City frameworks integrate renewable power generation, energy storage systems and energy prosumers – who produce and consume their own energy – to achieve net zero.
Meanwhile, our smart home and IoT platforms create secure and connected living environments that are capable of automation and personalization. We will work to advance digital twins, data platforms and cybersecurity infrastructures to ensure that cities can be well managed as coherent, intelligent systems.
Our investment arm plays a critical role in this picture, as well. We collaborate with startups in AI, robotics, renewable energy and advanced materials to accelerate innovation. Partnerships with leading academic institutions, including Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), enable us to study, test and deploy new solutions in real environments.
Why smart cities must improve human experience
Yet, at the heart of our vision remains people. The ultimate goal of smart cities must be to improve human experience. Smart cities should reduce energy costs, enhance safety, create cleaner environments and shorten commutes. They should enable healthy lifestyles, support vulnerable populations and foster a greater sense of community. They need to be inclusive places where technology adapts to the lives of people – not the other way around.
As cities become the primary setting of global life – accounting for nearly half of the world population and over 80% of global GDP according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) – their success will define our collective future. This is why transformation towards integrated smart cities matters. It is not simply technological innovation, but rather, an imperative for society.
No single sector can accomplish this alone. Smart cities require collaboration across construction, technology, energy, mobility, academia, the public sector and governments. GS E&C is committed to leading through such partnerships and redefining what it means to build – not just for today, but for future generations as well.
The future of cities depends on the reinvention of how we envision, build and operate communities. We are embracing that responsibility with optimism and a firm belief that integrated smart cities can create a more sustainable and connected world.
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