Our new Chair Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees has set out his vision for global city action on climate in a TED talk.

In the talk, now available online and given in Vancouver, Mayor Rees underlines the great work cities are already doing across the world to meet Net Zero.

In terms of scale, cities occupy less than 3pc of the earth's land surface and yet they are home to over half the world's population. Mayor Rees adds that they consume 80pc of the world's energy, but their scale and history of innovation means they are the ideal places for solutions to the climate crisis.

For example, they can house and employ more people on less land, minimising the pressure on urban sprawl. And because of their high population density more people can share energy through innovations like heat networks.

 

Mayor Rees urges his audience to think about the global potential of a world-wide network of cities, scaling up efficiencies for billions of people and goes on to give examples of cities around the world that are bringing a fresh approach to the environment.

For example, Oslo, Norway, has introduced a circular waste management system which sees nearly half the city' food waste recycled, Singapore is one of the densest cities in the world, but is a model for green planning while Bogata in Columbia has one of the largest electric bus fleets in Latin America.

Mayor Rees goes on to talk about the UK Cities Climate Investment Commission which has identified £206 bn of investment opportunities across the Core Cities and London and is making sure private and public investors are aware across the UK.

Mayor Rees adds: "We haven't got time for abstract debates, our populations want change today...The climate crisis we're in demands leadership and mayors I meet around the world are stepping up into that space to meet the moment."