World Engineering Congress focuses attention on the consequences of climate change

At this event, organized by the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (FMOI), Puerto Rico was represented by engineer José Domingo Pérez, elected president of the Pan-American Academy of Engineering and current president of the Puerto Rican Academy of Engineering.

The FMOI represents more than 30 million engineers in 100 countries.

The summit, whose motto was”Innovation + Technology + Sustainability = Engineering 2050”, served as a platform for the presentation of technological proposals that offer opportunities for global socio-economic growth taking into consideration the situations generated by climate change.

In this direction, the main thematic axes that focused the discussions of the conclave focused on “Climate Change: Adaptation and Mitigation”, “Impact of Renewable Energies”, “Innovation, Technology, Sustainability: Digital Transformation” and “Energy Engineering”.

“The event was a meeting space to share experiences and updated knowledge about the present and future of engineering, climate change and innovative technologies, within the context of good practices for sustainable development. In addition, since construction, in the case of Puerto Rico, is the great engine of economic reactivation, engineering is becoming more important, which makes it necessary for all professionals in the sector to keep up to date with the latest global trends,” said Pérez.

The Puerto Rican engineer specified that the summit became very important, since the work carried out from engineering impacts the life of society in areas such as health, education and housing, in addition to affecting the ways in which human beings live and mobilize, as well as how the environmental environment is protected.

The event was attended by important international speakers, who shared experiences and knowledge about the future of engineering, climate change, innovative technologies and sustainable development.

The presence of Dr. Franklin Chang Díaz, former astronaut of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); engineer Sandra Cauffman, adjunct director of NASA's Astrophysics Division; Juan Verde, international strategist who worked for former United States President Barack Obama; and Dr. Xavier Gabarrell Durany, professor of Chemical Engineering at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), where he also heads the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology.

During the congress, the FMOI executive board also approved a resolution repudiating Russia's war actions against its neighboring Ukraine.

“As a global engineering organization dedicated to sustainable development, we are very concerned about the damage that the conflict is causing to the global effort towards scientific, technological and industrial cooperation, especially to address the world's most pressing problems, including climate change, clean water and sanitation for all, and access to clean, reliable and low-carbon renewable energy. In this context, military confrontation is not only something we reject, it is something that no country and community in the world can tolerate,” reads part of the statement.

This world engineering summit concluded with the swearing in of the new president of the FMOI, a position that fell to Dr. José Manuel Vieira, a native of Portugal, who from 2014 to 2020 presided over the European Federation of National Engineering Associations.