All stakeholders must realise that sustainability transition and net-zero emissions are two sides of the same coin, that we cannot de-couple one from the other without a detrimental impact
Storrega Geotechnologies chief executive Nick Cooper helped found Bedlam Brewery SCOTLAND could become a powerhouse in the global carbon capture and storage (CCS) business with hundreds of jobs in prospect in coming years, a key player in the emerging industry has said. Oil and gas heavyweight Nick Cooper leads the Storrega Geotechnoolgies business which acquired control of the pioneering Acorn CCS scheme in Scotland with the backing of deep-pocketed international investors. Acorn has been held up as a model for a technology that could be deployed on a massive scale around the world to help tackle climate change. Developed initially by a small business based in Banchory working with giants such as Shell, Acorn will involve pumping carbon dioxide offshore for storage in depleted North Sea fields.
In his opening address at this year’s Malta Sustainability Forum, President
George Vella made it clear that to change the world, the time to act is now
Mr President, you opened the Malta Sustainability Forum 2021 by mentioning the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2015 to achieve a sustainable future by 2030. Will these goals be achieved?
It seems unlikely. Attempts to improve life on earth have been ongoing since the early 1990s. The first goals aimed for the year 2000, followed by the Millennium Summit’s eight international development goals set in 2000. Without a unifying concept, these goals remained unfulfilled five years later. So, the 2015 UN SDGs started well because ‘sustainability’ unifies them. However, despite some promising results, overall progress towards the SDGs has been rather slow.