A1 Urban Transition Alliance – High-level forum opening
Having faced and often successfully overcome environmental, economic and social crises, industrial legacy cities are experts in creating their own resurgence and turning challenges into opportunities. The Urban Transitions Alliance is guided by industrial legacy cities’ joint vision of well-managed transitions towards a sustainable future, which centers on a healthy environment and just opportunities for their citizens.
This session will see the political leaders of the Urban Transitions Alliance cities officially open the Urban Transitions Forum at the ICLEI World Congress. They will demonstrate the power of industrial legacy cities as drivers of ambitious local action with a joint declaration to collaborate and make the Sustainable Development Goals the guiding principle for their cities’ transition to sustainability.
Furthermore, the Alliance leaders will discuss how they jointly provide the political leadership in their regions to raise the profile and the ambition of industrial legacy cities. This dialogue will serve as a high-level backing for inter-municipal knowledge exchange and cooperation, driving and accelerating local action on the main topics of the Alliance, that is the transition to sustainable energy, mobility, infrastructure and social systems in all cities. The Alliance leaders will also set the agenda for the implementation of results from the exchange within their cities.
Presenter
Gino Van Begin
Secretary General, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability
Facilitator
Shu Zu
Regional Director and China Representative, ICLEI East Asia Secretariat & ICLEI Beijing Office
Panelists
Wiliam Peduto
Mayor, City of Pittsburgh, USA
Quingmin Bian
Head of Bureau of Science and Technology, Yuhua District, Shijiazhuang
Mariusz Skiba
Vice Mayor, City of Katowice, Poland
Julie Laernoes
Vice president, Nantes Métropole
Alex Zhang
Executive Director, Eco Forum Global