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WHEN I instructed folks I used to be going to Saudi Arabia to do some reporting, many assumed I used to be visiting Neom, or some variation on “that bizarre metropolis within the desert”. I wasn’t. I went to report on a venture referred to as Deep Local weather, which is researching human adaptation to excessive circumstances, such because the brutal warmth of the Arabian desert. However I discovered lots about Neom, and a few of the different modifications afoot in Saudi Arabia, whereas I used to be at it.
I first heard about Neom intimately in 2021 at COP26, the place its government director of power, Jens Madrian, …