UAE hotel night: carbon footprint per room-night
Live factor value
63.8 kgCO2e per room-night
Source: UK DESNZ greenhouse-gas conversion factors, 2026 (revision 2). Factor set desnz-2026-r2.
The United Arab Emirates sits high in the DESNZ 2026 hotel table: the live per-room-night figure below is roughly six times the UK's, with only a handful of Gulf and island destinations above it. Desert cooling runs year-round, the hotel stock skews toward large luxury properties, and the grid behind it all runs overwhelmingly on gas — with desalinated water adding an energy cost most countries don't carry.
A five-night Dubai stopover can therefore out-emit many European week-long holidays before transport is counted. It is the clearest example in the whole table of why 'where' matters as much as 'how long' for hotel footprints — the same five nights in Geneva would be about a tenth of the figure.
Worked example
A five-night Dubai stay: 5 × 63.8 = 319 kgCO2e.
Measure your own with the free hotel calculator.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is the UAE's hotel factor so high?
- Year-round air conditioning, an energy-intensive luxury hotel stock, a gas-fired grid and desalinated water together put the UAE among the highest per-room-night averages in the 2026 table — a pattern shared by its Gulf neighbours.