
Net Zero Carbon Cities: An Integrated Approach
Cities cover 3% of the earth’s land surface yet they create more than 70% of all carbon emissions. To keep global temperature increases to 1.5°C or below, cities have to achieve net-zero....
COVID-19 has already significantly altered urban life, both physically and socially. From temporarily widened pavements, replacing car parking spaces and roadway with cycleways, to allowing restaurants to expand into the street to enable social distancing, these changes are transforming the urban streetscape. In parallel, citizens are demanding that cities are built back better to become liveable, sustainable and affordable, which requires action on climate and resilience, the provision of vital social infrastructure (health and housing) and enabling the digital infrastructure required for our new normal. This is set against record budget shortfalls, dwindling tax revenues and record unemployment, while health, sanitation and housing costs have accelerated, putting city budgets into deficit. The Global Future Council on Cities of Tomorrow will seek to identify how cities can be re-designed to build back better and provide the climate and resilience, social and digital infrastructure to do so, as well as rethinking traditional revenues and financing mechanisms to deliver liveable, sustainable and affordable cities.
Co-chairs
Council Manager
Alice Charles, Project Lead, Cities, Infrastructure and Urban Services Platform, World Economic Forum
Cities cover 3% of the earth’s land surface yet they create more than 70% of all carbon emissions. To keep global temperature increases to 1.5°C or below, cities have to achieve net-zero....
About 90% of cities around the world do not provide affordable housing or of adequate quality. The cost of housing, as well as location, prohibits people from meeting other basic living c...
The world is urbanizing and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming life at an unprecedented rate. Cities must be “agile” – able to move quickly and easily – to enable their citi...
The industrial internet represents one of the most promising and transformative applications of the Internet of Things (IoT).
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Urban Development and Services Initiative has released its new whitepaper on the Circular Economy in Cities: evolving the model for a sustainable urba...
The need for cities to fully harness the potential of data constantly flowing through them has never been more urgent. Data Driven Cities: 20 Stories of Innovation, highlights examples fr...
The World Economic Forum has released a report taking a deep dive on migration and cities, exploring the types, causes and patterns of migration, the most affected corridors and cities, t...
As this World Economic Forum report emphasizes, the future of cities largely depends on the way urbanization is managed and public-private collaboration is leveraged to implement the New ...
The report highlights the reforms required at state and local levels to implement smart cities in India. It recommends institutional, business-environment and sector-specific reforms to e...
The World Economic Forum has released a new report, Inspiring Future Cities & Urban Services
10 of the best urban innovations that are having a positive effect on quality of life and economic development.
With 54% of the Chinese population living in cities, China has six megacities of more than 10 million inhabitants and 103 cities of more than one million inhabitants. This presents China ...
Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, was selected as the inaugural Champion City of the World Economic Forum’s Future of Urban Development Initiative in January 2012. As the inaugural cit...
The growth of cities and unprecedented rural-to-urban migration throughout Asia, Latin America and parts of Africa are frequently cited as defining global trends of the 21st century. Whil...
What might the world look like in 2025? In autumn 2020 the World Economic Forum convened expert-led Global Future Councils, time-bound think tanks, to explore that very question.
Imagine two trucks passing on a city street. One is a delivery truck carrying new wood flooring and furniture to stores and homes in the city. The other is carrying a fallen city tree dam...
The focus by leaders at COP26 understandably rested on national issues within a global context. But the growth of cities cuts across national lines. In particular, the sprawling cities of...