Geoscience and the Paris Agreement: Energy

Dr Katriona Edlmann is Chancellors Fellow of Energy at the University of Edinburgh and an expert in the secure and sustainable use of the subsurface for low carbon energy applications.

In this short video, Dr Edlmann guides us through some of the key reasons why Earth science is critical to the energy transition and to meeting our global climate goals.

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) aims to accelerate global action towards the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and governments around the world have highlighted the vital role of subsurface technologies and resources, such as carbon capture and storage, geothermal energy, energy storage in underground caverns to support future hydrogen economies, and compressed-air energy storage, for meeting net-zero targets. Demand for metals and materials to support the production of, for example, renewable technologies, batteries and electric vehicles, is also projected to increase substantially in the coming decades.