Hello! I’m Ben Cowie, a PhD candidate in Bernhard Mayer’s Applied Geochemistry group and blogger covering the Carbon Management Canada meeting in Calgary this week. Through this forum I hope to share some of the many exciting discussions this week as we kick off the first year of CMC, and to shed some light on the leading research activities that are helping us progress toward a low carbon economy.
The conference kicked off Wednesday morning with a welcome from CMC directors Steve Larter and Richard Adamson, who discussed the purpose of the organization, to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere, by following four main principles, 1) focus research on carbon reduction, 2) train highly qualified personnel, 3) create game changing technologies, and 4) facilitate information exchange among academia, industry and government. The project’s goal “to reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere” sets the bar high for research teams and identifies a tangible result for its efforts. In plain language, the success of CMC will be defined by reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada.
The importance of innovation to achieve the desired GHG reductions was highlighted by Steve Larter, who also stressed the need for collaboration between industry and academia. Academic researchers must be willing to reach out to industry leaders, and vice versa, if we are to solve our greenhouse gas challenges.
Welcome to the first annual CMC meeting. I look forward to sharing the exciting research activities from the meeting over the next few days.
Ben
Next entry: ”The Carbon Commons, A Collaborative Tool to Reduce Carbon Emissions and Link Researchers”