“It’s not too late” to fix climate change, says Nobel Prize-winning scientist who extracted water from desert air

“We’re not too late,” said the UC Berkeley professor, known as the inventor of lattice chemistry. Global Luck Forum In Riyadh. “I believe that once the community decides there is a problem, we will get to work and these problems can be solved.”

This year, Yaghi became the first Saudi citizen to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Jordanian-American, who also holds dual US citizenship, won the 2025 award along with Susumu Kitagawa and Richard Robson for their pioneering discoveries in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). His research group has successfully extracted water from the desert air in Arizona, and he believes that scientists, like them, are the key to solving climate change.

Yaghi added: “All these technological problems, once we decide, once we have the will to fix those problems, solutions emerge just like the solution that just won the Nobel Prize,” pointing to new breakthroughs in his field. “MOFs have already been deployed to capture carbon dioxide from flue gas or cement plants.”

He continued: “We also have another device that can deliver 850 liters of water per day without the need for energy input except ambient sunlight or the use of waste heat.” “So these conditions are very favorable in terms of energy and the water that is delivered is very clean and has absolutely no pollution. It is drinkable after it has been mineralized, but it can also be used for agriculture, for domestic use, for hygiene, and it is just water that is produced every day – clean, clean water.”

From a one-room house in Amman to a Nobel Prize winner

half 2025 US Nobel Prize Winners In the sciences there were immigrants, among them Yaghi, who immigrated to America as a teenager.

Born into a family of Palestinian refugees in Amman, Jordan, with little education, the former Nobel laureate in chemistry revealed that he grew up in “A very modest house“, without electricity or running water. The large family of 12 shared one small room with livestock. At the age of 10, Yaghi happened to discover molecular structures in a book in the school library.

His father had only finished sixth grade, and his mother could neither read nor write. On his father’s advice, Jordan left for the United States on his own when he was only 15 years old. He worked several jobs and attended community college before pursuing his doctorate at the University of Illinois and later becoming a U.S. citizen.

In an interview with Hindu Earlier this month, Yaghi described science as “the greatest equalizing force in the world.”

“Smart people, talented people, skilled people are everywhere,” he added. “That is why we must really focus on unleashing their potential by providing them with opportunities.”