 What kind of world do I want to live in? I think about this question a lot. For our generation and for specifically my group of people, which is refugees, the circumstances might dismantle any vision of the future that we have. You're trying to rebuild, you're trying to make a future for yourself, and then the climate-related disaster comes and you start again. It's not about how it's affecting you now, it's about how it's affecting you your entire life. The first step to understand is that we're all a part of it. None of us are going to be left out by the crisis. We're at a stage where if we don't act now, really there won't be very much left. There are generations that will never see certain things that we grew up seeing in real life. We have to start treating this like the emergency it is to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals. We have to go from an intention to a serious commitment. Business leaders really need to rethink how they conduct their business and invest in creating systems that are climate-friendly. The action I would like to see is accountability. Structures being put in place where countries aren't just asked to do something, but they're kept accountable to the decisions that they make. There has to be that strong collaboration between government, between corporations, between youth activists to drive change forward. The world I would want to live in is a world where imagining the future is not a privilege. I want to live in a world where people do not give up on hope, hope that a positive change is possible. The fact that you're listening today means that you are willing to make a change. Good afternoon and good evening. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to this session on Financing Green Investment in Cities at the World Economic Forum Sustainable Development Impact Summit 2021. I'm Aubrey Choi, I'm the Chief Sustainability Officer at Morgan Stanley and also the CEO for Institute for Sustainable Investing. And I'm so pleased that so many people have tuned into this really critical panel around the role of cities. Just to put this in context before we welcome our incredible panelists for this discussion today, just to remind how critical cities are to the fate of the planet. Cities consume 75% of the world's primary energy and account for more than 70% of all carbon emissions. And so as we march towards Glasgow and the attempts to really try to address climate change, we have to think about green infrastructure and the urban ecosystem around the world. And so in this session, we are going to plan to do three big things in 30 short minutes to how do we want to maintain the urgency of investing. Not only in carbon reductions but really in net zero carbon solutions and in fact hopefully nature positive solutions in cities. Secondly, how do we align, whether that be at the corporate level, the city level or the federal level to really guide investments towards these solutions. And finally, how can we underline the need for collective action so that we can actually not have great theoretical conversations but actually real dollars flowing towards real projects to create real change getting from commitments to action. And to impact. And so I'd like now to introduce and welcome our three are distinguished panelists joining us today and that this is a on the record plenary conversation which will be made available online as well after the session so welcome first of all and Mr Francesco Thank you so much for joining us on this special day. We also have Commissioner Penny Abiridina from the great city of New York. She is commissioner for international affairs. And we will also be joined by Minister Carlos Eduardo Korea, who is the minister of environment and sustainable development of Columbia. So again, this is an on the record conversation. Thank you all so much for joining us and Mr Seraj. I'd like to start with you. Francesco and now has been an incredible leader in green finance and really sustainable developments generally actually just in 2019. The L issued a very innovative bond that we were so privileged to be able to be the joint book runner on with you on a $1.5 billion bond supporting SDG seven affordable and clean energy. And I think what was so innovative about it wasn't really aligned investors with you to be focused on your clean energy renewable energy goals that in fact if you didn't meet those goals, the financial conditions of the bond actually changed. That was a real innovation that we've seen many corporations coming to us and saying, should we do something like what and I'll do it was so innovative so we're very excited about that. You were also somehow in your spare time are the co chair of the world economic forum net zero carbon cities program, bringing together businesses with city and regional and national governments to accelerate this transition. And so I would love it if you could elaborate a little bit more for us about the net zero program and how this really helps business leaders like yourselves engaged in net zero and a more sustainable future. Thank you Audrey and and thanks for for the introduction. I have to add that we kept issuing bonds and the last one was yesterday. This is the 3.5 billion bond. So it's this sustainable development gone bond issuing program is continuing and we are today about 30% or that linked to SDG targets. And we've seen this becoming a momentous tool in the industry in the bond industry so it's many other companies are following as you said, the reason why you in my so called spare time I am interested in that zero carbon cities is because it's very well showed in your presentation you're saying how many people are living in cities and how much the cities energy consumption is in in in the world it's it's more than 70% 75% actually so the reason why we're getting interested in cities is that as an energy company as an electricity provider. We see increasingly population in cities requiring electricity consuming electricity, and it is our interest that this electricity is clean, and it is produced and distributed and consumed in the most efficient manner. So if that happens, then by doing that with tackling 75% of the energy problem of the of the world so it's a big optionable part of the value chain in net zero carbon cities we provided an incredible tool it's a toolbox where all the cities that participate to the program and by the way Bogota is one of them, the minister so Columbus heavily in this and provide examples of how a city can be decarbonized how energy can be used more efficiently in how the life of citizens can improve if these things are done properly. Experiences of things that work well experiences of mistakes made that maybe others can avoid this toolbox is there. There is a link in the web that can be interrogated if people are interested and a lot of other cities are getting interested in using this toolbox. So this is a proof that cities become a very important part of the energy use in the world is there like a country on their own. If you want to dispatch many see much more similarities across cities, and there are across geographies and states. So it's a very, very important point where to work in the sense. Well, we are of course in big cities we have distribution networks in most large metropolitan areas of Latin America and many metropolitan areas of Europe, and we know how big the difference it is when you digitize the network. When you put when you enable citizens to use efficiently their energy, and we have today the largest digitized network system around the world comprising cities in many large countries in South America and in Europe. We believe this trend is going to take place around the world, and we think that the transformation on the energy efficient front and on the sustainable energy supply front will be in the cities will be fundamental to meet the goals. To do that we need to align public and private partnerships in the right way. Also here there are examples of failures and examples of success and I think everything starts from trust between the public and the private segment and that is the clear point of everything. We're starting with the right food trust is the keyword going forward in this energy transition and we could think cities are important to establish this trust around the world. That's wonderful. Thank you so much, Francesca and I love so many of the things that that you just said there in terms of the trust between public and private and business and citizens. And I love that toolbox. As you said not only has the successes which everyone loves to brag about but also the failures because I'm a big believer that learning what to not do with someone who's honest about the failures is such a huge contribution so so thank you for your leadership on that. You know I want to turn to Penny now and Penny as you know as we think about this I love one of the lines that Francesca just said about how cities are like a country on their own, and that is in many ways definitely true of you know my hometown and you're a great city of New York City, which is so iconic in so many different ways. You know, in New York is not right now really on the forefront of so many things and climate change. It's a very sort of exposed city exposed to rising sea, just rising sea level, temperature extremes, and obviously, you know, extraordinary density, so that any weather impact, you know, affects millions of people and unfortunately we've seen tragically with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, how quickly and unexpectedly that can become, you know, really really a matter of life and death. And New York has also been an incredible leader at the forefront of sustainability policies investments and so I'd love to get your vision for you know what a net zero journey and a green recovery means for New York City. Absolutely. Thank you, Audrey, and it is such a pleasure to join all of you today with the World Economic Forum. Francesca, you will enjoy that much of the last eight years as I've worked with the UN and with Member States. I like to mention that New York City is as large as not larger than 141 countries so this is our foundation for trying to explore partnerships. And so, you know, the de Blasio administration is coming to an end, it's been eight years. And from day one, the administration has been committed to tackling global warming. Superstorm Sandy happened right before we took office. Just to remind people participating, it killed 44 New Yorkers, displaced thousands of others and left $19 billion in damage in its wake. And so we knew that the next Superstorm was not a matter of if or when so over the years we've been working to ensure that New York City becomes more resilient and sustainable and our significant benchmark of green leadership was the launch of our New York City Green New Deal back in April 2019. Now this is a $14 billion initiative with ambitious targets that will ultimately cut emissions by about 40% by 2030. Some of these targets include requiring all large buildings to conduct retrofits to lower their emissions, which is a global first banning construction of all glass facade buildings. Now there's some exemptions but they were made only if they followed strict guidelines, mandating organics recycling and ending unnecessary city purchase of single use plastic utensils. First we've been really trying to be part of the leadership on climate accountability and owning that space. We've been divesting $5 billion in our pension funds from fossil fuel companies and reinvesting that money in renewable energy. We partnered with the City of London and C40 cities to create the first ever divest invest forum to support cities worldwide divesting their funds from fossil fuels. Now even after COVID hit our city I think many of you remember New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic here in the U.S. last spring. We continue to make climate action a priority because we know that global warming is our threat multiplier. In fact climate environmental justice are key components of our COVID-19 fair recovery for all and this year as we kicked off climate week the mayor has introduced several key initiatives to help cut our city's greenhouse gas emissions. On Sunday we announced the launch of electrified New York City, a program that will provide free services for owners of one to four unit family homes, particularly our low and moderate income families and Queens and Staten Island to reduce energy costs, improve air quality, and fundamentally cut greenhouse gas emissions. Now these particular kinds of buildings are well suited for electrification using air source heat pumps thereby eliminating their reliability on fossil fuel gas and oil for heating. Now these buildings have also they have high potential for lower energy costs through slow through solar panel installations. We know that these emissions generated from heating cooling empowering one to four family homes account for about 20% of New York City's greenhouse gas emissions from building so through this new program. New Yorkers will gain equitable access to green technologies through no cost technical assistance for property owners for prioritizing working with contractors from a minority and women owned businesses. And I should mention that this program is part of New York City's effort to install about 1000 megawatts of solar in the five boroughs by 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Now on Monday, the mayor joined our New York governor, Ho-Chul, to announce two major green infrastructure projects that will power our city with wind, solar and hydropower. The Clean Path New York and the Chaplain Hudson Power Express projects are going to produce approximately 18 million megawatt hours of upstate and Canadian renewable energy per year enough to power more than two and a half million homes. Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 77 million metric tons over the next 15 years, which is the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road and providing 2.9 billion in public health benefits over 15 years that will result from reduced exposure to harmful pollutants. Now once completed, these infrastructure projects will create approximately 10,000 family sustaining jobs statewide and bring about 8.2 billion in economic development investments, including developer committed investment to support disadvantaged communities. Fundamentally, all of this work is to ensure that we can have a more equitable society throughout our five boroughs. Now these projects will help reduce the city's reliance on fossil fuels, lower carbon emissions, and significantly improve air quality and public health in our disadvantaged communities. Now they will also help meet the mayor's commitment to power city government operations with 100% clean and renewable electricity by 2025. And we fundamentally know that local governments, we can't do this work alone. And so we are heavily relying on our own public private partnerships to help create the sustainable future we need. And these initiatives I mentioned are all due to such partnerships. So electrify New York City is run by the mayor's office of climate and sustainability in partnership with kinetic communities and neighborhood housing services of Queens and Staten Island. The Clean Path New York project was developed by Forward Power and the New York Power Authority, and the Chaplain Hudson Power Express project was developed by transmission developers Inc, which is backed by Blackstone and Hydro Quebec. As a society, we know we can't afford to live in silos and as Francesco said it is about building trust and part of doing this work is doing it along with the private sector, as well as the community. Thank you so much. That was like an incredible whirlwind tour of all of the different things that you're doing. Well, you know what I love about it especially is I think you really lay out a great roadmap and picture for how if a, you know, if policymakers are focused on climate change, and if you're doing it holistically. If you're solving an environmental issue, you're creating jobs, you're addressing social equity through climate justice and doing special, you know, investments for those who are most vulnerable to it which right here the lower income and disadvantage groups and also of course protecting the infrastructure resilience and the resilience of life in your city so I think that's an incredible, you know, that if done right and incredible a chore to force of you know multiple stakeholders really benefiting from forward climate action. So thank you for all of all of your city's leadership there. I'm excited also to be joined by Minister Carlos Eduardo Correa Scott Minister, thank you so much for joining us. I'd love to turn to you now. Hi. I'd love to turn to you to ask you to take you know we've Francesco has talked about sort of a corporate level of action and what how important global corporate leadership is. I mentioned there I mean what he and us talked about the city, and I'd love for you given your role to talk really about at a national level, how policymakers can really work with cities and the private sector to play that critical role of a national policy leadership and addressing climate change and especially green investments in cities. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much to Audrey and my colleagues from the panel. I think there's a very important topic here. Thank you for this opportunity. After listening to you talking about the corporate sector, talking about the cities, the cities, the great cities that we've been able to see. Before I became Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of my country, I was also the mayor of an intermediate city, a city of 500,000 inhabitants. And from there I was able to see the power that has the public policy, the national public policy. And today the cities have great challenges. But those great challenges have to be supported from the public policy. And that's why from the government, for example, in the case of the government of Colombia, we are doing several actions in progress, precisely to this. First of all, and that some of you have already mentioned, we have a great challenge in 2030, which are our NDCs. In December 2020, our president, Ivan Duque, mentioned that Colombia would have a new update on its commitment to the Paris Agreement. Of a 51% reduction of emissions in 2030. And at the same time, we will reach zero deforestation in 2030. And a projection in 2050 of being a carbon neutral country. Why do I go with this and why do I start telling you about the moment I went to the mayor and the cities? Because this is a national policy. A national policy that cannot be seen only from the executive, but also from the legislative. So in the next few days we will be radiating to the Congress of the Republic a law, which is the Act of Climate Action. And the Act of Climate Action incorporates the 196 actions that our NDCs have in a law of the Republic. So what we are looking for is not only an executive issue or a four-year development plan, but that this transcends the next governments. And based on the establishment of a solid public policy of a law of the Republic, we are working with the private sector where we have already signed agreements with more than 100 agreements of carbon neutrality. We are already signing agreements with the 30 capitals of the 30 departments that our country has, so that each of these departments is committed to making cities carbon neutral also in 2050. But of course in a very clear route that is what we have established. So today, based on this, what we are doing from the public policy, from the laws, from the Congress of the Legislative Republic, is to leave a path drawn where each one of the alcaldes, each one of the cities, is going to join. It is going to join in a highway until 2050, a highway that seeks carbon neutrality in the next 30 years and that highway has several lanes. A lane that is our struggle against deforestation, the seed of trees that we are now planting, 180 million trees, restoration, environmental education. A lane that is clean and sustainable mobility. A lane that is the energy transition. A lane that is the circular economy. Sustainable agriculture and environmental education. All of this is going to walk on that highway to reach the carbon neutrality. So one of the most important issues is to be able to involve our alcaldes, our private sector in a single purpose that is to be a carbon neutrality and to be sustainable in the long term. Thank you so much minister. And that is the really perfect, the perfect transition back to the rest of our panel. You know really talking about partnership between companies, cities and national leaders and so I'm going to just ask each of you to close this out for sort of a quick, a very quick lightning round response. And Francesco as someone who has something very special to celebrate with today I'm going to ask you to go first. Tell us what we talk a lot about this enormous need for green infrastructure, and these days investors say that they have much money ready to invest in that. But how do you really need to go from this broad high level commitment to an actual bankable project, what are the most important things that need to happen for investments to really be ready to invest in from your perspective. Yeah, well I think they, the problem is always the same all over the world it has to do with the fact that we do have a lot of ambition and I think cities mayors governments as we've heard understood that there is a big solution that it's decarbonized and then electrify. In order to do that, you need investments and the money for that investment is there. So it's not a shortage of capital. The question is, what is in between. And what is in between is the set of governance tools that we inherit from our decades of past industrial evolution, which is not any more fit for the ambition and the speed in which we want to do this transformation. So, for example, what the minister has just said is super important. If a government understand this thing this team and starts to reform legally the system, or even from a regulatory standpoint so that the alignment of cities the alignment of constituents and also the capabilities of investments to materialize is easier than that country benefits from this from this effort and sees the investment come and flow. If a country doesn't understand that then investments go elsewhere. So it's super important that governments understand that they have a key role in establishing regulatory frameworks and say rules that discipline investment in that direction. And what Penny just said is a testimony of it. I mean, New York City needs energy you cannot generate in the footprint of New York City the energy New York City consumes it's impossible. So you need to bring this energy from elsewhere. Big transmission line distribution lines are the solution. You need to be able to permit this investments in a decent amount of time. So it's all about reforming and aligning the regulatory and legal systems to this new opportunity and then things will happen because the business is ready for that. Well, Penny I think Francesca was just thrown down a gauntlet to you as a city leader so as a city leader and what is the most important thing to do to build and really increase that flow of bankable projects. I mean, listen, we we are not disagreeing with them we are right now actively seeking and executing these projects based on partnerships with the private sector I do think that the exciting role for cities to is that we represent the needs on the ground. Right. So these these projects that are being, you know, brought you know put together with through with academics and experts and others in the field. But we're also resonating with what are the needs in our communities and so working with the cities and along with state and federal has been critical for for New York City. Okay, well the minister. You have the last response at the national level what is the most critical thing that a national policy leader must do to really accelerate investments in green infrastructure. Oops, I think you're on mute minister. There you go. Sorry. Gracias Audrey. Creo que uniendo me un poco a las palabras de Francesco. También. Estamos hablando de varios temas y varias posibles fuentes de financiación para poder generar impact positivo en nuestros territorios. Uno primero sigue siendo el legislativo y un poco los que lo que les contaba sobre la presentación de una nueva ley de acción climática. Dice que el estado dice que en los próximos 10 años al año 2030 tendremos un 30 o un 50 por ciento de movilidad eléctrica o de transporte público eléctrico. No solamente se van a generar desde el sector privado una grandes oportunidades de inversión en los territorios en la medida en que estamos hablando de economía circular. Vamos a tener diferentes modelos de negocio alrededor de de esta política pública de esta estrategia y se van a generar recursos desde el sector privado entonces aquí el sector privado juega un papel muy importante. Y en un un proyecto no solamente del ejecutivo sino del legislativo va a ayudar a que venga más rápidamente recursos de la cooperación internacional ya que es un compromiso de Estado y no simplemente de un gobierno. Entonces desde el legislativo con la presentación de proyectos de ley vamos a poder estar generando posibilidades de inversión. Ase al futuro alia asociaciones y alianzas público privadas que son muy importantes. Y por supuesto algo que quisiera dejar en la mesa que para Colombia en este caso muy importante lo será también para las ciudades y los territorios y es el mercado de carbono. Que en el caso de Colombia estaremos en Glasgow en noviembre presentando ya todo el marco regulatorio de nuestro mercado voluntario de bonos de carbono. Entonces fíjense que son diferentes fuentes con base en estrategias sostenibles que nos van a permitir tener recursos propios. Tener fuentes de financiación desde el sector privado y el sector financiero que juega un papel muy importante todo el tema de ISG por ejemplo. El sector financiero tiene que ir volcándose y los ministros de Hacienda de los países tienen que ir volcándose hacia unas estrategias fiscales enfocadas en la sostenibilidad y en los recursos naturales. Entonces son diferentes fuentes que pueden llegar y es por eso que los territorios tienen que tener mejor capacitación más pedagogía para poder tener acceso a estos recursos. That's wonderful minister. Thank you so much. And I have to say, you know, so often conversations about things like this, especially in climate change, especially given the extraordinary events we've had this year are very depressing. And I really want to thank each of you for being so optimistic and so inspiring and showing really that there's a very clear road now, a very simple investment opportunities that make sense that are profitable that create jobs that are more profitable and that also can along the way, you know, address social justice issues and more equitable distribution of growth and its benefits and also protection from harm. So I think that again I really want to thank you for this incredible roadmap of what a corporate leader can do what a city leader can do and what what a national leader can do and you know minister especially your your closing words about how we all need to go to Glasgow, with really our highest ambitions, the most, you know, aggressive possible commitments that we can each make, and really try to use that as a way to push action forward so I really I thank you all so much for for your wonderful contributions here but more importantly for everything that you do all day long in your in your company your city in your country, and I will very much look forward to seeing all of you virtually and potentially literally in the commitments that you will bring forward to Glasgow to really make a difference so thank you so much to all of you and to the forum, and that is going to conclude our public portion of this session and topic members please stay on for the session but thank you all so much. Thank you.