Met4Tech Principal Investigator Professor Frances Wall was among four global academics chosen to present on the prestigious World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS) Talks webinar programme on the theme ‘Science for Human Security: New Carbon Economy’.

WAAS brings together a wide range of academic disciplines, to examine issues of central importance to global society and Professor Wall, Professor of Applied Mineralogy at Camborne School of Mines, spoke on the role of critical minerals at the talk on February 20.

This was the sixth webinar within the Earth Humanity Coalition (EHC)-WAAS Program of Sciences for Sustainable Development. This developed from the UN General Assembly’s International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development initiative in cooperation with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

Professor Wall presented on Critical Minerals and her talk discussed some of the research that is taking place to understand and find new geological deposits, extract more critical minerals as by-products from mines already producing major metals, extract and process in more environmentally-friendly ways, join and create a circular economy, and put the development of resources in a framework of strong sustainable development by using the UN Resource Management System.

Her presentation can be viewed here

The webinar had been initiated by Amanda Ellis, Co-Chair of the New Carbon Economy Consortium (NCEC) and Former UN Ambassador and Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for New Zealand.

The other speakers were Professor Matthew Green and Professor Klaus Lackner, of the Centre for Negative Carbon Emissions Centre, Arizona State University, and Professor Walter Merida, Associate Dean at University of British Columbia.