From Vision to Velocity: Houston’s Global Convergence That Reshaped Low-Carbon Markets and Alliances

HOUSTON, TX, UNITED STATES, April 21, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Society for Low Carbon Technologies (SFLCT) convened an exclusive marquee event with more than 140 global leaders during the defining 2025 Carbon Capture Utilization (CCUS) Conference via the Capture & Connect: Exclusive CCUS Mixer—as officially recognized by the conference’s organizing institutions and co-launched with the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Northern Emirates. This builds on a pivotal moment at the same conference in 2023, when SFLCT’s Chairman of the Board, Fernando C. Hernandez, convened an evening sideline meeting with 20 individuals, initiating the organization’s formation and setting in motion the strategic alliances that would drive its global expansion.

In under two years, the low-carbon organization has inked Pakistan’s first low-carbon agreement, launched clean technology diplomacy alongside the Government of Flanders in Belgium, catalyzed Uruguay’s $6 billion U.S. dollars sustainable fuels project, and played a key role in shaping South America’s first CCS law via Brazil. That trajectory came full circle in Houston, where the event gained Middle Eastern geopolitical weight—further anchored by Oumer Tahir, SFLCT’s Industry Advisory Board Member and then Head of SPE Northern Emirates. His vision was instrumental in positioning the Mixer as a strategic junction where the very logic and language now defining global decarbonization governance intersect. Hernandez remarks, “We did not gather for optics but converged to calibrate markets, reinforce partnerships, and continue architecting the next era of low-carbon action and impact."

Participants included executives, academics, government officials, industry pioneers, and non-government organization leaders—gathered not to observe but to shape the discussions of this decade and the next. Together, they advanced low-carbon diplomacy and energy strategy in motion, activating strategic levers across borders. What unfolded was a flashpoint of low-carbon realignment. SFLCT’s growth is not incidental—it reflects deep embedding within enduring alliances operating across developed and developing nations—not for proximity, but for permanence.

It is unsurprising that Hernandez and Tahir were joined by several distinguished leaders across sectors, featured in the event’s opening image, including Nihal Darraj, CO2 Storage Lead at the Global CCS Institute; Emily Llinás, Director at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG); Gilly Rosen, Carbon Storage Resources Lead at the U.S. Department of Energy; Bruce Miller, VP of Government & Industry Affairs at SLB; and Alessandra Simone, Vice Chair at SFLCT. That same level of intentionality and institutional alignment extended to the event’s collaborators via the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, AAPG, and Energy Tech Nexus. SFLCT formally acknowledges and thanks the conference organizers—SEG, SPE, and AAPG, for their invaluable support in enabling the broader success of this convening.

The event also marked a defining moment: the first inductees were honored with the Order of Distinction of Excellence Award and appointed as Officers of the High Commission of Excellence—a title reserved for those who advance SFLCT’s mission at the highest levels of trust, strategy, and execution. The honorees included: Yosmel Sanchez, for his technical command; Llinás, for advancing cross-border coordination; Simone, for strategic CCS rigor; and Jeannie Chung (not present during the award ceremony), for institutional precision. These appointments underscore their place within the evolving choreography of the global energy transition.

The event demonstrated the power of institutional collaboration, producing a borderless convergence of insight and execution, made possible through the domestic and international supporters who were part of this watershed moment—one that continues to reverberate.

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