[MUSIC] Great to be here and just in case some of you are still wondering what the panda has got to do with construction in cities, let me give a brief background. So we work for a future where we live in harmony with nature. And we do this by protecting biodiversity and by seeking solutions to reduce our global ecological footprint. And the trends so far are not favorable. We see in our biannual Living Planet Report, an accelerating loss of biodiversity. And the constant growth of the ecological footprint. Today being in the state were we use 50% more of the resource productive capacity and the carbon absorption capacity, than what the Earth can sustain. And the size of our ecological footprint is determined by how we live. The fact that this is an urbanizing planet makes it clear that the design of cities will determine the global footprint. And will also determine whether we win or lose our battle for a future in harmony with nature. You may already be aware that urban dwellers account for 70% or more than 70% of the global carbon emissions already. And the global urban population is set to double, almost double, by 2050 meaning that the urban area will more than double within that period of time. And that will be coupled with huge investments approximately 350 trillion US-dollars are expected to be invested in urban infrastructure and is used over the next three decades, that’s approximately 5 times the global GDP. Now to put it bluntly, where this investment goes, will determine whether billions of people will be locked into fossil fuel dependent and wasteful infrastructures and lifestyles, or, if this investment can actually become the seed that can drive a transition of our cities into places, where we all can live sustainable and attractive lives. Together with Booz & Company, WWF have assessed the different alternatives of having all these investments going into business as usual infrastructure, or choosing the best available technologies. And clearly the latter option is not only helping us and giving us a chance to save the climate, it's also radically reducing the costs, the overall costs for urban infrastructure in the long run. But for this route to be taken, we now already need very aggressive targets set on the urban level. In terms of emission reduction and renewable energy production. And we need to make sure that the cities are built using the best practice urban planning methods, and the best available technologies. But in order for that to happen, we also need to make sure that the places where urbanization is happening at the fastest rate, that is in Africa, Asia, we develop innovative financing strategies in order to enable the cities to meet the upfront capital cost for the better alternative. In the longer term it pays off, but in the short term, we need about 6% more capital to do this choice. The better choice. And all of this is the reason why WWF is engaged in cities and why we developed the Earth Hour City Challenge. Which is a recurrent, year-long program, where we invite the cities to demonstrate the leadership necessary by publicly reporting on a globally recognized reporting platform, commitments and actions to transition toward a sustainable and renewable future. The cities, they report these commitments and then an international jury of experts from all the key organizations like the C40 Network, UN Habitat, serveral development banks, ICLEI, academic institutions, they assess the data. And then, on a level playing field, the jury selects the most ambitious city for each country and one for the world, and these winners are entitled the Earth Hour Capitals of the Year. This is the platform where the so far up around 200 Earth Hour City Challenge candidates have been reporting. And it's also a platform that the major city networks, and the UN have agreed as the central repository for collecting city level data, and feeding it into the global climate negotiations. The reason for doing this, is of course, to raise the ambition of the global climate negotiations: you may be aware that cities all together already have committed to more carbon reduction than all the nations altogether. So by putting this on a transparent platform, it will hopefully enable, increase national level ambitions. And by transparently documenting the actions taken by cities, we also wish to encourage finance actors and also governments to help remove obstacle and help cities access the finance needed, to scale up the most promising climate actions. Now, in order to get elected officials to really do this commitment, to help the cities, they need support. And that's why we've coupled the Earth hour city challenge initiative with a yearly social media campaign, where we engage the public. We educate the public by promoting the leading examples from the city challenge cities, and showing them what's possible within the areas of transport, building, waste, energy production. And we invite the public to express support for a strong sustainability action. And just with the pilot campaigns, we've received within a couple of weeks hundreds of thousands of expression of support for an urban development, that can enable citizens to live more sustainable lifestyles. And we have lots of great examples also coming from the leading city challenge cities. For example, Vancouver demonstrates the value of strong, ambitious targets. And they've been working on green district development and a lot on sustainable mobility, and that has paid off both by the delivering on the ambitious climate targets, but also by doubling the number of green jobs, and cementing the position of Vancouver as one of the most attractive cities of the world. And in Cape Town, we have seen the excellent combination of equity challenges with climate challenges in large scale programs. For example, the program developing solar heat for the thousands of poor households in the poorer districts of Capetown. And this year, the global winner, Seoul, is a great case in point of how you can implement the latest available technologies at scale, with tens of thousands of installations of solar power, as part of an overall ambition of the city to turn the whole city into solar power plant. Last but not least, I want to mention Gothenburg. Gothenburg, the Earth hour capitol of Sweden was a strong contender in the city challenge this year, and the jury provided special mention to this city for its climate strategy and its ability to think outside of the box. Which partly demonstrates in the choice to set also consumption based emission targets, thus looking at the lifestyle of the citizens, but also of course, in its pioneering use of green city bonds to finance big win initiatives in the city. As part of the transition of the city, such as biogas production, and of course, electromobility initiatives. So, WWF looks forward to keep highlighting really promising and impressive climate action at the local level, and to keep building this critical mass of cities that publicly reports strong commitments in climate actions, but the cities can't do it alone. So we will keep encouraging citizens, finance actors, business, governments to do their share in speeding up this transition needed on the local level. And the good news is that, this is not only about saving the climate. This is a fantastic opportunity to enable more attractive lifestyles, and to build social and economic resilience for both cities and businesses and our communities. Thank you for your attention. I hope I kept to the time. >> Thank you Karina. >> [APPLAUSE]
