Saudi Arabia unveils plans for 'zero carbon' city with no cars or streets

Saudi Arabia has announced plans for a $500bn zero-carbon city dubbed The Line, which will house around a million residents but feature no cars or streets.

The project was unveiled by Mohammad bin Salman, the Crown Prince, and is due to begin construction later this year on a site inside Neom, a futuristic "megacity" commissioned by the Saudi ruler. 

“We need to transform the concept of a conventional city into that of a futuristic one,” the Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, said in a video address on Sunday.

“By 2050, one billion people will have to relocate due to rising CO2 emissions and sea levels. 90 per cent of people breathe polluted air... why should we sacrifice nature for the sake of development?” he added.

Crown Prince Salman said The Line would offer “high-speed transit and autonomous mobility solutions” instead of cars and conventional streets, but did not elaborate on what technology would be used.

He also claimed that the transport system would ensure that no journey within the city, which will take the shape of a 105-mile belt, should take longer than twenty minutes.

The Line, along with Neom, are supposed to be the leading symbols of the Crown Prince’s Vision 2030 reforms programme, which aims to wean the Kingdom off oil and embrace clean energy.

Neom, which will feature flying cars and robots according to the Saudi plans, has been mired in controversy as the construction site sits on land claimed by the Bedouin Howeitat tribe. 

Last April a member of the tribe, Abdul-Rahim al-Howeiti, was shot dead by Saudi security forces during an argument, after he refused to leave his home.

Saudi Arabia has denied claims that it is forcibly displacing the tribe and says it has offered compensation to those affected.

Construction work on Neom also had to be paused last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.