Rethinking Engineering Education for a Climate-Resilient Future

Climate change is no longer a distant threat—it is here, unfolding before our eyes.

- DR ROHAN DUTTA

The root cause? Unchecked, ever-increasing carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and other greenhouse gases, many of which are synthetic, are introduced by human activity. Almost every product we use—from raw material extraction to manufacturing, transportation, consumption, and disposal—relies on burning fossil fuels. The question is, can we expect climate-conscious solutions from engineers and designers trained in systems that rarely question this dependence? The honest answer is no.

Take cement production, one of the most carbon-intensive industries, responsible for nearly 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. A colleague and I at the University were exploring alternative routes for cement production and have found that by modifying a set of particular reactions and increasing the temperature by just 150°C—far lower than the traditional 900°C+ required in standard methods—we could reduce emissions by over 80% on an industrial scale. While this is significant, a traditionally trained engineer might stop there, seeing it as an optimized process. However, a climate-conscious professional would go further, asking: Can we entirely remove the use of fossil fuels from the process? Could catalysts or alternative reactions achieve the same results with even lower energy input? And how low can it be? This difference in mindset is what separates conventional engineering from climate-resilient innovation.