Disadvantaged populations around the world systematically face the greatest environmental hazards and risks; poor air and water quality, high levels of noise pollution, urban heat, droughts and flooding. These hazards pose risks to public health but also erode social cohesion and entrench inequalities in cities and countries.
Smart climate action plans and systemic policy interventions can simultaneously delivery positive social justice and health outcomes whilst accelerating decarbonisation and reducing inequalities that exist in neighbourhoods by helping those most in need.
This opening session brings together global Mayors to share best practice on climate justice approaches to city governance, asking what can be done to maximise the social, health and environmental co-benefits from joined up thinking and how these schemes are being delivered in different contexts. The discussion is followed by a deep dive into transport and mobility as we look at how cities are using smart solutions to plan and future proof for city resilience, and to deliver social, health and environmental outcomes.
| BST | Platform Live @ 8am BST | |
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| 10:00 | Chair Opening Remarks | |
| 10:05 | Opening Mayoral Plenary: Mayoral action for a just and green global recovery
Speaker:
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| 10:30 | Virtual Panel – Promoting public health and city resilience through smart urban mobility solutions
Speakers:
In conversation with Karen Vancluysen, Secretary General, POLIS | |
| 11:15 | Spotlight: How Paris is reconfiguring, reimagining, and reclaiming city space for people and the environment.
Speaker:
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| 11:35 | Climate Leaders Live Interview with company or organisation with solution for mobility, electrification, transport or freight. | |
| 11:55 | Chair Closing Remarks | |
| 12:00 | Break until 14:00 | |
| BST | Platform Live @ 8am BST | |
|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | Chair Opening Remarks | |
| 14:05 | Keynote Interview: Re-building healthy, safe and resilient cities street by street
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| 14:30 | Virtual Panel: Delivering on decarbonisation, health and social inequality in the buildings sector
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| 15:10 | Climate Leaders Live
Interview with company or organisation with solution for decarbonisation of buildings and built environment e.g digitisation, embedded devices, monitoring, energy for buildings, architectural or engineering design expertise
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| 15:50 | Chair Closing Remarks | |
| 15:55 | END | |
Our opening session looks at nature-based solutions in the urban context. City planning and policies that protect and increases urban greenspace and bluespace and improve biodiversity can bring multiple co-benefits for climate change adaptation and mitigation, public health and allow for inclusive social development.
We bring together those at the forefront of applying nature-based solutions in different urban contexts highlighting the challenges and opportunities such solutions offer.
Our second session invites a roster of Mayors from across the globe to discuss how cities can take integrated approaches to jointly tackle clean air and climate. Cities are often regarded as at the forefront of action on air pollution given so many sources of emissions reside at the city level.
Nonetheless, cities must collaborate with national governments to tackle transboundary pollutants and increasingly, global governments are integrating air pollution plans within their NDCs to simultaneously take action on air and climate. In collaboration with the BreatheLife2030 campaign we invite a selection of cities to give details on the challenges they face when it comes to improving the quality of air for citizens around the world.
| BST | Platform Live @ 8am BST | |
|---|---|---|
| 10:00 | Chair Opening Remarks | |
| 10:05 | Keynote Mayoral interview: Cities in Balance with Nature: Applying nature-based solutions to build city resilience | |
| 10:35 | Virtual Panel: Cities as test-beds for action on climate and air pollution
Speakers:
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| 11:15 | Climate Leaders Live Interview: Interview with company or organisation working with cities to apply nature-based solutions, or reduce emissions from air pollution. | |
| 11:35 | Chair Closing Remarks | |
| 11:40 | Break until 14:00 | |
As we approach CoP26 national governments are considering how to further decarbonise various sectors to meet NDCs and keep global warming below two degrees. The challenge is decarbonising the national economy whilst ensuring affordable, sustainable and reliable energy for growing and expanding populations.
As buildings, transport and infrastructure increasingly becomes electrified, ensuring this electricity is generated by renewable sources is critical. Given urban areas are responsible for over two thirds of global emissions, cities have a major role to play in helping national governments decarbonise and hit NDCs.
In this final session we bring together learnings and input from the previous sessions by focusing on the cross-cutting topic of energy, looking at how cities can reduce emissions from energy, source electricity from renewable energy sources and bring in digital and interconnected technologies to manage, streamline and use energy smarter.
This session is followed by a second panel on the circular economy where we bring together cities using both top down and bottom up approaches to highlight the variety of ways circularity can become embedded in the urban context to tackle a variety of environmental issues.
| BST | Platform Live @ 8am BST | |
|---|---|---|
| 14:00 | Chair Opening Remarks | |
| 14:05 | Opening Plenary: Powering up for decentralisation, digitisation and decarbonisation
Speakers:
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| 14:35 | Climate Leaders Live | |
| 14:55 | Virtual Panel: Closing Loops for a Circular City Economy
In conversation with Andrew Morlet, CEO, Ellen MacArthur Foundation | |
| 15:30 | Chair Closing Remarks | |
| 15:35 | END | |