title: Summarizing comments on the discussion and a prospectus for urgent future action.
abstract: Following my personal reactions to some of the key points made in this Discussion (Part I), I present, in Part II, what I perceive to be the most important, and, in some cases, urgent actions that now need to be taken in the following inter-related fields: (i) design of catalysts, especially for the production of materials using anthropogenic carbon dioxide, CO2, as feedstock; (ii) the continuing role of catalysis in the protection of the environment; (iii) the importance of catalysis in the generation of fuel and the release of energy; and (iv) the wisdom of conducting life cycle and techno-economic analyses continually during the development of new catalysts, as well as of those in regular use. A brief account is also given of the prospect of designing atom-efficient catalysts in which either atomically dispersed rare (and expensive) metals such as Ir or Pt or the use of single-site earth-abundant elements (Al, Si, O) can be employed to facilitate important industrial reactions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science, University of Cambridge, 27 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB0 3FS, UK jmt2@cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: John Meurig
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Thomas
keywords: CO2 as feedstock; atom-efficient processes; catalysis; single-site catalysts