The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) aims at “Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change”. While the technical aspects to addressing climate change is more evident in the goals of COP 26, it is time attention is equally paid to the governance of climate change at the metropolitan scale, made up of our major cities. Due to rapid urbanisation, the world is increasingly becoming metropolitan. Cities have expanded outwards and have become more interdependent with their immediate...
Affiliated researcher and PhD alumnus Dr Carlos Cadena Gaitán has been named one of the ‘21 Heroes of 2021’ by the Transformative Urban Mobility Initiative, a global forum co-sponsored by UN-Habitat. Early in the pandemic, while working as Transport Secretary of Medellín in Colombia, Carlos took a leading role in distributing Personal Protective Equipment to the city’s residents, while personally fighting the virus on public transport with disinfectant sprays. But coronavirus was not the only ki...
Built specifically for students of public policy, the 'Metropolitan: A Sustainable Transit Simulation' game challenged participants to develop a sustainable public transit infrastructure in their assigned city. “Last year’s simulation was based on the Syrian refugee crisis and the year before it was based on a pandemic outbreak. I don’t think that I have to convince you on the value of the pandemic simulation with the outbreak of the coronavirus that is going on right now. It is our hope that th...
Described as “an astonishing inspiration for leaders around the world for how to mobilise people, create change in your local community and see the international effects,” PhD alumnus and affiliated researcher Dr. Carlos Cadena Gaitan has won the 2015 Future Sustainability Leader award. “This year’s… campaign searched for nominations for the best and brightest future leaders in sustainability that are mobilising for change and making us all seize new opportunities,”...
This year’s UN-Habitat Global Report on Human Settlements is dedicated to sustainable mobility. In its foreword, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon highlights the urgent need to invest in urban transport to ensure sustainable development around the world. Undoubtedly, 2014 will see a multiplication of the global actions for sustainable transport that we’ve witnessed in 2013. For decades, developing countries followed the failed US suburban development model; a model based on addiction to car...