 If we get our cities right, we just might achieve the 2030 development goals, and we may limp through the 21st century. If we get our cities wrong, we're doomed. Now, cities are dual-etched. On the one side, cities are probably our greatest triumph when it comes to political, economic, and social engineering. If you live in a city, and even if you live in a slum, or a favela, or a shanty town, and 20% of the world's urban population does, you're going to live longer, you're going to be healthier, wealthier, and better educated than your rural counterparts. There's a reason why millions of people are moving to cities every single week. But cities have a dark side. Cities generate more than 75% of the world's carbon emissions and consume as much in terms of energy resources. Millions of people die as a result of violence, pollution, and road traffic injuries in cities every single year. But in spite of these incredible opportunities and dilemmas that our cities face, we know surprisingly little about them. With the exception of a couple of hundred global cities, we don't know what's happening in the vast majority of the world's cities of the global south, especially in Africa and Asia, where 90% of all future urban population growth is going to take place in the next 20 to 30 years. Why? Well, part of the problem is that we're still trapped in seeing the world through the lens of nation states. We're still caught in a 17th century paradigm of parochial national sovereignty. Our global affairs are still mediated by national diplomats operating in the national interest. There's just one problem. It's that nation states themselves are in decline. This 400-year-old experiment of nation states is coming to a close. Nation states aren't down, they're not out, but they're getting there. Part of the problem is globalization, hyper-globalization, which is limiting the discretion and autonomy of cities from above. The other great challenge is turbo-urbanization, which is literally reconfiguring the map politically, economically, demographically from below. The world has changed. Think about it. When nation states first burst on the scene in the 1600s, less than 1% of the world's population lived in the city. Today, all of you know, it's more than 54%. And by 2050, it's going to be upwards of 70%. So today, we do have these 193 nation states, but we've got a growing number of cities that are rivaling them in power and influence. Think of Tokyo. Tokyo has a GDP of $1.7 trillion. That makes it larger than Russia, than South Korea, and Canada. So cities like Tokyo, Paris, London, Dubai, Mumbai, Shanghai, they're punching above their weight economically, but well below their weight politically. And that's going to have to change if we are going to hit those 2030 goals or anything beyond. Today's turbo-urbanization has a dark side. Many of the fastest-growing cities, especially those cities in the global south, they're urbanizing before they industrialize. And that means their services are getting overstretched. Their critical infrastructure is unable to support this rapidly-growing population. What you see here is every single city in the world with a population of 250,000 people or more. For those of you who are interested, there's more than 2,100 cities like this, and they're growing. And without going into a great amount of detail, because we don't have the time for that, the larger and redder the circle, the more fragile the city is. The smaller and the bluer it is, the more resilient. And that occurs when the social contract of a city comes unstuck, when there's a disequilibrium between the expectations of leaders and the residents, and it's best manifest in the convergence of a series of risks, income inequality, reduced access to services, pollution, homicide, exposure to droughts, floods, and cyclones. That's what makes the city more or less resilient. And as you can see, resilience is actually worst thing in any part of the world, especially in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, into North Asia and down in Southeast Asia, precisely those parts of the world that are least prepared and equipped to cope. Now, it's not just internal threats that are stressing our cities. It's external threats as well. Climate change, especially sea level rise, is probably the greatest existential threat that our cities are facing today. That's because the vast majority of the cities, more than two-thirds of them, are located on the coast. We have over a billion people who live in low-lying coastal areas that are prone to floods. Major cities like Shanghai, like Dhaka, like Karachi, like Hong Kong, they're going to be hit first in a whole frontal assault. They're literally going underwater. And it's not just cities across Asia or even across Europe or even into the South Pacific, and they will be affected, but it's also cities across the Americas. Miami is a perfect example. You see, Miami is built on a swamp, on porous limestone. And what we're already seeing, and those of you who follow the news know, it's been hit repeatedly by rising sea levels and storm surges. Miami is going under. Now, there is a small irony in all of this, which may not be lost in some of you, which is Mar-a-Lago, the winter White House, might be the first to go. But it is a serious risk, and it's across the Gulf. And this is really just a dress rehearsal, a warm-up for what's to come. One of the key drivers of sea level rise is carbon emissions. What you see right now is a map that shows all the fires at night over a three-year period. These are both human-induced and naturally occurring flares. Now, this is generating enormous amounts of carbon, and you can see a series of trends. Above and below the equator in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, what you'll see is blooms emerging. That's mostly the result of slash-and-burn agriculture. This isn't so much a problem by cities, but a problem for cities. Just last week, New Delhi was literally shut down as a result of smog generated from fires in the rural countryside. Hundreds of schools were closed. There was road chaos on the streets. And it's not just Delhi. Cities across China, parts of South Asia, are having experiences that are reminiscent of those of the industrial age 100 years ago in Western Europe. And it's not just forest fires. You'll see carbon being emitted from steel plants in Tianjing all the way to gas flares into the United States. This is the equivalent of millions and millions of cars on the road. It's easy to forget, though, in all of this, that cities are profoundly connected to their rural hinterland. I want to take you to the Amazon. And I'm going to take you to the northern state of Redonia, which is a couple of thousand kilometers away from where I live in Rio. Now, what you're going to see here is 30 years of satellite imagery that show land being cleared for soy, for sugar, but most of all for pasture, for cattle. This is, of course, being driven by demand for beef, as those of you who know Brazil, in places like Rio and Sao Paulo. But more importantly, it's being driven by insatiable demand for meat in emerging markets, especially in China and across Asia and into Western Europe and elsewhere. Now, this has devastating implications, not just for our world, but specifically for our cities. It's generating carbon, of course, by reducing the amount of coverage, but it's also reducing the capacity of forests to capture more carbon. More than that, it's leading to potentially irreversible tipping points because it's reducing transpiration and cloud cover and rainfall while at the same time diminishing our groundwater supplies. Right now, some of the largest cities in Brazil are facing really serious water shortages. We're down to 10%, 12% of water reserves in some of the biggest cities. 850 cities across Brazil are facing chronic water shortages, and this in a country with 20% of the known water reserves. So here's my punchline. Cities can and must be part of the solution. The good news is that cities already are stepping up. What we're seeing right now are cities pooling their resources and working in global alliances to tackle some of the biggest global challenges of our time, from climate change all the way through to migration. We're also seeing a new politics of empowered cities emerging, where cities are exerting their urban sovereignty as nation states default on their national sovereignty. Cities are already implementing international standards. They're applying and moving beyond existing national standards. They're stepping up when nation states are stepping down. We'll talk about solutions in the second part. Thanks. Robert, just a quick question. Can you give us an example about a model city which is ready for this rate of urbanization? Can you give us an example of a city that is ready for becoming urbanization? Well, I think part of the challenge is a lot of the cities in Western Europe are essentially more established across North America have already gone through in a way of their urban transition. In some cases, those cities are stabilizing and in many cases, they're actually reducing their population size. So, in a way, they're adjusting and you're seeing restriction of immigration as a result of increasing the throwing up of national borders. The problem is that the vast majority of cities in the global south they're not ready for this coming urbanization. There are very few who are able to adjust and expand to deal with this coming onslaught. So, I think there are cities in the Middle East that are seeking to build smarter technologies and build greater infrastructure. And there's an example of Neome right now, for example, which is seeking to get ahead of the curve in some ways to build a super city in a way to adjust for this growing population demands. But I think the problem is there are very few cities that are ready for this urban deluge.