Prof. Mercedes Maroto-Valer meets UN Secretary-General at High Level Political Forum in New York

Last week, Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer (Champion and Director of IDRIC and Deputy Principal, Global Sustainability) took part in a series of meetings for the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) conference in New York. The Council also met with the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and discussed priorities in the running to COP28.

The Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) was launched in September 2021 and is a global, high-level body of engineers and energy systems experts. It acts as independent advisory council to the UN Secretary General in the “coalition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050”. CEET is co-chaired by the Gerd Müller, Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the President of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), and works in partnership with Enel Foundation.

CEET was set up in recognition of the key role engineers play in relation to climate action. It is made up from engineering experts from diverse sectors (power, industry, transport, buildings, chemicals) and stakeholders from academia, business, international organisations and the private sector.  Among its top level objectives, it is working towards solving the challenges of scaling key technologies in support of the global energy transition

As part of its meeting series, CEET also participated in the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) – held at the UN headquarters in New York.

Commenting on the event, Prof Maroto-Valer said “During HLPF many perspectives and different priorities across the globe were presented. Each country is ramping up commitments towards Net Zero and there are some ground-breaking projects happening across the globe. However, at the half point of the UN Agenda 2030, meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is daunting, with progress towards them drifting.”

During the meeting series, the Council also recognised that engineers are agents of change who are instrumental in coordinating and accelerating action around the world.

Prof Maroto-Valer added “We have made significant progress in the understanding of solutions that will be driven and accelerated by regional contexts and opportunities. It remains possible to achieve our goals if we coordinate and accelerate action around the world.”

Prof Maroto-Valer is looking forward to welcoming the members of the Council to Heriot-Watt, Dubai during COP28 in December.