'Green Silk Road' a major step on clean energy journey

The world's biggest single-site PV plant, built with Chinese expertise, underlines the UAE's desire to tackle climate change. Wang Yuke reports from Hong Kong.

In a desert some 50 kilometers from downtown Abu Dhabi, there is nothing but neat rows of solar panels surrounded by lattice towers, with some sophisticated utilities at one end.

Observers are often stunned by the isolation, the immensity of Mother Nature, amid this sprawling 21-square-kilometer stretch of land.

However, unlike barren deserts, this area, equivalent to 2,800 soccer fields and more than an hour's drive from the capital of the United Arab Emirates, radiates vitality.