Speaker line-up announced for Cities Climate Action Summit

Representatives from the cities of London, Manchester, Melbourne, Miami-Dade, New York, Prague, Sunderland, Tallinn and Toronto are among those speaking at SmartCitiesWorld’s inaugural Cities Climate Action Summit in April.

The event is being held as an in-person and virtual event between 18-20 April 2023 and will bring together experts from around the world. The in-person day takes place in London’s iconic County Hall and will also include a concurrent exhibition of climate solution providers.

Urban climate action plans

“We want to ensure that both virtual and in-person delegates come away with practical information and solutions to feed into their climate action plans and strategies,” said Chris Cooke, founder and CEO of the global online resource, SmartCitiesWorld.

“We have been tracking cities’ response to climate change since we launched the platform seven years ago and have seen it move up the agenda. The Summit aims to provide a holistic view of how urban climate action can be achieved at scale and will be relevant for cities and municipalities and councils of all sizes.”

The event is designed to be highly targeted to address the challenges cities face when battling climate change. Hence it will focus on three key areas:

• Policy development
• Climate financing
• Technology deployment.

Cooke added: “We’re delighted to welcome our senior-level and expert line-up of speakers from around the globe who will be sharing their knowledge and stories from the climate action frontline.”

Those announced so far include:

• Mark Atherton, head of environment, Greater Manchester Combined Authority
• Jaromir Beranek, chairman of the IT and Smart City Committee City of Prague
• Theo Blackwell, London’s chief digital officer
• Sally Capp, lord mayor of Melbourne
• Dan Champion, head of investment delivery planning for air quality, Transport for London
• Jane Gilbert, chief heat officer of Miami-Dade County
• Jesper Johansson, chair Climate and Environment Committee, Municipality of Vrmd Stockholm County
• Mark-Emil Talivere, innovation expert at City of Tallinn
• Raj Mack, head of digital, City of Birmingham
• James Nowlan, executive director of the City of Toronto’s Environment and Energy Divisions
• Shirley Rodrigues, deputy mayor environment, Greater London Authority
• Mark Wheeler, chief information officer, City of Philadelphia.

We are also delighted to welcome Mami Mizutori, assistant secretary general – disaster risk reduction at the United Nations, who will deliver the opening keynote speech, The key to building climate resilience. She will discuss the role of effective policy development, technology rollouts and financing to successfully combat climate change in cities.

The full line-up to date can be seen here.

Climate action panels and case studies

Panel discussions will focus on a range of areas central to urban climate action, including building resilience, access to data and monitoring, the transition to renewables and climate adaptation. Individual city case study sessions include: Sunderland’s work to retrofit and become energy-efficient; Turning Tallinn into a testbed for environmental sustainability; and Melbourne’s route to a green economy.

Influential global organisations such as C40 Cities, G20 Global Smart Cities Alliance, FIWARE Foundation, Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), Leading Cities, Cities Climate Finance Alliance, Connected Places Catapult, Resilient Cities Network and World Smart Sustainable Cities Organisation, will also be taking part.

The event builds on SmartCitiesWorld’s efforts to support cities’ urban climate action and follows our open letter to Cop26, the launch of the Urban Exchange podcast series and our ground-breaking Cities Climate Action report.

For full details of the event, visit the microsite Cities Climate Action Summit.