The period of “global boiling” is right here, with United Nations scientists warning that drastic steps are wanted to stop a local weather change disaster. However reversing the terrifying development isn’t a misplaced trigger, in accordance with a Nobel Prize scientist Prof. Omar M. Yaghi.
“We’re not too late,” the UC Berkeley professor, often called the inventor of reticular chemistry, mentioned at Fortune’s International Discussion board in Riyadh. “I think that once society decides that there’s a problem, we will get to work and those problems can be solved.”
This 12 months, Yaghi turned the primary Saudi nationwide to obtain the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
The Jordanian-American, who additionally holds twin U.S. citizenship, received the 2025 prize along with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for his or her groundbreaking discoveries on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). His analysis group succeeded in extracting water from desert air in Arizona—and he thinks that scientists, like them, are key to fixing local weather change.
“All these technological problems, once we decide, once we have the will to fix those problems, solutions emerge just like the solution that just received the Nobel Prize,” Yaghi added, whereas pointing to new breakthroughs in his area. “MOFs are already deployed to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas or cement plants.”
“We also have another device that can deliver 850 liters of water a day with no energy input aside from ambient sunlight or the use of waste heat,” he continued. “So these are energetically very favorable conditions and the water that is delivered is ultra clean and has no contamination in it whatsoever. It’s drinkable after it’s mineralized, but also could be used for agriculture, for household use, for hygiene, and it’s just water that is produced every day—clean, clean water.”
From a one-room residence in Amman to Nobel Prize winner
Half of the 2025 U.S. Nobel Prize Winners in science had been immigrants—together with Yaghi, who immigrated to America as a youngster.
Born right into a household of Palestinian refugees in Amman, Jordan, with little education, the Nobel chemistry laureate beforehand revealed he grew up in “a very humble home,” with no electrical energy or working water. The massive household of 12 shared one small room with cattle. At 10 years previous, Yaghi occurred to find molecular constructions in a e-book within the college library.
His father had solely completed sixth grade and his mom might neither learn nor write. On the recommendation of his father, he left Jordan for the U.S. alone at simply 15 years previous. He labored a number of jobs and attended neighborhood faculty earlier than pursuing his PhD on the College of Illinois and later turned an American citizen.
In an interview with The Hindu earlier this month, Yaghi known as science “the greatest equalizing force in the world.”
“Smart people, talented people, skilled people exist everywhere,” he added. “That’s why we really should focus on unleashing their potential through providing them with opportunity.”
