Adélaïde Charlier, Co-Founder Youth for Climate Belgium Terry A’Hearn, CEO of the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency: towards COP26 in Glasgow and a successful Decade of Action Kurt Vandenberghe, European Green Deal Advisor, Cabinet of the President of the European Commission: towards a green, just and resilient European recovery post-COVID Mauro Petriccione, Director General for Climate Action, European Commission: European Green Deal Minister Teresa Ribera, Minister of Ecological Transition for Spain: working towards a green transition and recovery for Spain Marieke van Doorninck, Deputy-Mayor of Amsterdam: implementing Doughnut Economics in Amsterdam High Level Reflections – Planetary Emergency Plan in Practice: Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of The Club of Rome Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Presentation Planetary Emergency Plan 2.0: Pavan Sukdhev, President of WWF International & Marco Lambertini, Director General of WWF International Mathis Wackernagel, President of the Global Footprint Network For any remaining questions, there is time allocated for a short Q&A at the end of the programme. The audience will have the opportunity to ask questions to our panelists throughout the event via the live chat box. On this occasion, The Club of Rome and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) will present an updated Planetary Emergency Plan, making the case that the pandemic has highlighted our fragility and the profound links between disease, nature, climate and emissions, equity and justice, the finance sector and food systems. Mathis Wackernagel (President of the Global Footprint Network) will kick off the Earth Overshoot Day campaign in Europe ahead of the global Earth Overshoot Day, which falls on Saturday 22 August this year. This public event will combine live engagement with video messages from ‘green champions’ throughout Europe and will bring to life what it means in practice to 'build back better' post-COVID. On 20 August 2020 at 9:00 am CEST, the audience may join The Club of Rome and Global Footprint Network for an engaging online session streamed live on YouTube. The challenge of relaunching our economies presents countries with a unique chance to act on the future we want. COVID-19 has caused humanity's Ecological Footprint to contract, pushing the date of Earth Overshoot Day back more than three weeks compared to last year. While the new photosheet behaves in a similar way, it's more robust and easier to scale up – and it produces fuel that's more straightforward to store, too (last year's system created syngas).Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year. "It's been difficult to achieve artificial photosynthesis with a high degree of selectivity, so that you're converting as much of the sunlight as possible into the fuel you want, rather than be left with a lot of waste," says Wang.Ī team from the same lab was also responsible for developing an 'artificial leaf' material in 2019. Any extra waste produced has to be dealt with, which can negate the positive effects of the initial reaction. It achieves something that isn't always guaranteed in conversion systems like this – a clean and efficient process without any unwanted by-products. What's more, the resulting formic acid can be stored in a solution, and from there converted into different types of fuel as needed. Ultimately, they think these sheets could be produced in large arrays, similar to those on solar farms. While the prototype photosheet only measures 20 square centimetres (3 square inches), the scientists who invented it say it should be relatively easy to scale up without incurring huge costs. "Sometimes things don't work as well as you expected, but this was a rare case where it actually worked better." "We were surprised how well it worked in terms of its selectivity – it produced almost no by-products," says chemist Qian Wang, from the University of Cambridge in the UK. No additional components are required for the reaction to occur, and it's fully self-powered. Key to the innovation is the photosheet - or photocatalyst sheet - which uses special semiconductor powders that enable electron interactions and oxidation to occur when sunlight hits the sheet in water, with the help of a cobalt-based catalyst. The acid can either be used directly or converted into hydrogen – another potentially clean energy fuel. The new device takes CO2, water, and sunlight as its ingredients, and then produces oxygen and formic acid that can be stored as fuel.
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