Eighteen months ago, E+T took another look at the IET’s updated Critical Targets. This, in turn, was based on a series we began back at the height of the Covid-19 crisis that examined the challenges facing humanity and what the role of our sector would be in solving those challenges. It is a theme I fully intend to return to in the future.
The issue you hold in your hands covers perhaps the greatest of these challenges: the technology behind feeding the eight billion inhabitants of the planet, securing the sustainable materials and the technology we can trust, protecting vulnerable environments, providing energy without overheating the planet and communicating to those on the periphery of mass populations.
There is so much to aim at and so much to be achieved. Which is why I found a speech by the government’s Chris Stark at the IET’s Powering Net Zero so reassuring (see News Analysis, p12). At a time when public debate often revolves around emotional triggers rather than cohesive solutions...