Sadiq Khan was elected for a second term as Mayor of London in May 2021. He was previously an MP for Tooting, South London for 11 years and served as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice from May 2010 and Shadow Minister for London from 2013.
Mayor Khan has declared a climate emergency and described it as one of the biggest threats we face today. In response, he has set an ambition for London to be net zero by 2030. He has also committed to a Green New Deal for London and to ensuring that there is a just transition in the capital from fossil fuel intensive industries to climate solutions. He supports combining a strong economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic with actions necessary to tackle the climate emergency and to create jobs and opportunities for all Londoners.
In doing so he is clear that London’s recovery from Covid-19 must ensure nobody is left behind. He understands that no one organisation or sector can tackle these challenges alone.
This approach led Mayor Khan to set up the London Recovery Board. The initiative brings together representatives from business, public sector agencies and civil society to tackle the inequalities exposed by the pandemic and build a fairer, greener, more prosperous London. The London Recovery Board’s ambition is to double the size of the green economy in London by 2030, helping to kick-start significant job growth over the next decade.
Mohammad Atiqul Islam’s leadership has become synonymous with dedication, honesty and generosity in Dhaka.
Mayor Atiqul Islam was born in 1961 in Comilla and raised in a large family by his high-ranking police officer father Momtaz Uddin Ahmed and his mother Mazeda Khatun. Having attended university, Mayor Atiqul Islam entered the business world with his older brother, establishing the Eminence of Islam Garments and employing 19,000 staff.
Mayor Atiqul Islam has been a member the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) since 1990 where he abolished child labour, promoted gender equality, established hospitals for workers and managed the response to the Rana Plaza incident. His work helped to promote the badge of “Made In Bangladesh With Pride” to the world.
His dedication to transforming lives and bringing order to the chaos of rapid industrialisation led Mayor Atiqul Islam to politics. He was elected as the Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation on 28 February 2019 and is well on his way to creating a lasting legacy of unparalleled service to this great city.
The Governor of Abidjan since 2011, Robert Beugré Mambé has served as Director of ministerial cabinets and was assigned to a series of community projects by the World Bank. He was President of the Independent Electoral Commission of the Republic of Ivory Coast before being appointed Governor, taking the lead on bringing social cohesion and rebuilding greater Abidjan.
Placing urban development as a service of humanity, Governor Mambé fights poverty through social and economic projects in urban agriculture and the agro-industry. He revived the financial capital of Abidjan around the emergence project of the President of the Republic, Mr Alassane Ouattara, launching works on roads, electrification, water supply and education in 2011.
Governor Mambé is Vice President of the International Association of Francophone Mayors; Vice President of Metropolis for Africa; Vice President of the International Association of Peace Messenger Cities for Africa, which includes the cities of the world recognised by the UN as Peace Messenger Cities; and Vice President of the International Association of Francophone Regions. In 2015, Governor Mambé was included in Young Intelligent Africa’s list of “the 50 personalities that built the Ivory Coast.”
Ada Colau Ballano is the first woman mayor in Barcelona’s history. She has dedicated a large part of her life to social and human-rights activism. She helped to launch the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) in 2009. She founded Guanyem Barcelona (subsequently Barcelona en Comú) in 2014, a political citizen platform that won the municipal elections in 2015. In 2019 she was re-elected Mayor of Barcelona. She has given priority at the City Council to public policies focusing on the fight against inequalities, the right to decent housing, the launch of a more sustainable city model and the strengthening of citizen participation. She has also opted for regulating the impact of tourism, for a diversified, inclusive and green economy and for boosting public services. Feminism, the promotion of diversity and solidarity also occupy a central place in municipal policies.
Her government’s policies have received several awards and distinctions, notably the Overall Tourism prize for best sustainable management of this global phenomenon (2018), the award from the European association Housing Europe and the International Tenants’ Federation award for the City Council’s housing policy (2019), recognition from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for the B-MINCOME programme to reduce inequalities and improve well-being in society (2019) and the EIC Prize on Blockchains for Social Good for the REC citizen currency (2020).
Besides being the Mayor and the President of the Barcelona Metropolitan Area (AMB), she is also the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) special envoy for relations between cities and the United Nations .
Mr Tse Chin-wan is the Secretary for Environment and Ecology of Hong Kong, China. Mr Tse joined the former Environmental Protection Agency of Hong Kong in 1985, which was subsequently reorganised in 1986 to become the current Environmental Protection Department (EPD). Throughout his service with EPD, he took up a wide range of duties at professional and senior managerial levels. He was appointed as a Deputy Director of Environmental Protection in 2013 and subsequently as the Under Secretary for the Environment in August 2017.
Mr Tse possesses a broad spectrum of experience in various areas of environmental protection, including law enforcement, computer modelling, environmental impact assessment and cross-boundary cooperation with the Mainland. During his tenure as the Under Secretary for the Environment, he helped spearhead the formulation of policies on air quality, waste management, climate actions and conservation.
Mayor Kate Gallego is the second elected female mayor in Phoenix history, and the youngest big city mayor in the United States. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Before being elected to Phoenix City Council, Mayor Gallego worked on Economic Development for local utility company, Salt River Project.
Mayor Gallego has focused on three key policy areas during her time in office: diversifying the economy, strengthening infrastructure investment, and working to make Phoenix a leader in sustainability. Her record of proven results includes leading the campaign to pass Phoenix’s citywide transportation plan through 2050, which was the largest local government commitment to transportation infrastructure in the country when it passed in 2015. She has led efforts on criminal justice reform and ensuring equal pay for equal work. Mayor Gallego is passionate about building a Phoenix that works for everyone and increasing the quality of life for all Phoenicians.
Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the United States and is currently the fastest growing city in the country.
Raymond Johansen was elected to the City Council of Oslo in 2015 and appointed Governing Mayor after establishing a City Government Coalition composed of the Labour, Socialist Left and Green parties.
Johansen’s city government was elected on a red and green ticket. Its main priorities are meaningful jobs for all, social equity and the fight against climate change. Under his leadership, Oslo has adopted the most ambitious climate targets set by any capital in the world, followed up with a broad range of measures spanning from slashing emissions from construction to getting more people to ride their bikes, cemented climate action through instituting climate budgets as a part of the regular budget, and achieved broad international recognition for the city’s climate leadership.
Serving on the C40 Steering Committee, Governing Mayor Johansen has three main topics of interest. First, he sees green public procurement as a key tool for city leaders to shift markets. Second, he is working to accelerate transport electrification. Third, he will push for good green jobs, knowing that meaningful jobs for all are key to a just green shift.
In addition, the Governing Mayor will continue leading a global effort on supporting C40 cities to develop climate budgets and promote clean construction, areas he has been a driving force in C40 for several years.
Yuriko Koike won Tokyo’s gubernatorial election in 2016 to become the city’s first female governor. She was re-elected in 2020 and is currently serving her second term.
In 2018, her third year of office, she hosted the Tokyo Forum for Clean City and Clear Sky, which focused on the common challenges facing large cities—waste management, sustainable resource management and air pollution. There, she and representatives of major cities around the world shared knowledge and information about their best practices, and confirmed that they will maintain and strengthen their global partnerships. At the same time, she also held the first C40 East, Southeast Asia and Oceania Regional Meeting as a C40 vice chair.
In May 2019, she hosted the U20 Mayors Summit. As an output of the summit, the views of the major cities of the world were prepared as a communiqué, which was delivered to the G20 by Governor Koike, representing the U20. At the U20 Mayors Summit, she also declared that Tokyo will become a “Zero Emission Tokyo” by 2050 to contribute to the world’s net zero carbon emissions.
Moreover, in January 2021, with a strong awareness of how crucial the actions taken over the next decade will be to achieve Zero Emission Tokyo, she announced that by 2030 Tokyo will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent over year 2000 levels. This was followed by a kickoff meeting in February to roll out a global movement for climate action under the slogan “Time to Act,” with the aim to accelerate effective actions for decarbonization, and together with the participating mayors of major cities and experts, a joint message was sent out to the world.
Governor Koike is also bringing changes to fields other than the environment. This includes empowering women, improving the parenting environment by resolving the issue of waitlists for daycare and introducing original programs to make daycare costs free, preventing secondhand smoke, and implementing administrative and fiscal reform.
Calling for a sustainable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, she is currently launching and implementing numerous projects for the realization of a sustainable society by addressing the climate crisis in addition to working for recovery of the economy, society, and people’s spirits exhausted by the pandemic.
A graduate of Cairo University, Egypt, after her return to Japan she worked as an Arabic interpreter and language instructor before becoming Japan’s first female economic news anchor for a television program reporting on the world’s economic issues.
She was elected to Japan’s House of Councillors in 1992, and to the House of Representatives in 1993, and has held key positions including the Minister of the Environment and Minister of Defense. She has always taken an active stance in addressing her concern for the environment. One leading example was her introduction of the Cool Biz campaign when she was the Minister of the Environment, which encouraged office workers to dress more casually during the summer to ensure comfort under higher room temperature settings.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta was born on October 29 1965 in the City of Buenos Aires and became mayor of the city in 2015, winning a second term in 2019.
Having graduated with a degree in economics at the University of Buenos Aires in 1988, Mayor Rodriguez Larreta went on to obtain a Master in Business Administration in Harvard Business School.
In 1993, he started the foundation “Grupo Sophia”, an NGO comprised of young people with the intention to take on public responsibilities. In fact, important Argentinean politicians used to be part of this NGO, such as the Former Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal, the Former Minister of Social Development, Carolina Stanley and the Former Minister of Education, Esteban Bullrich, among many others who left their mark.
In 2002, he started to actively participate in politics with Mauricio Macri, with whom he founded the political party “Compromiso para el Cambio” in 2003. It was renamed “Propuesta Republicana” (PRO) in 2005.
That same year, when Mauricio Macri was elected as deputy, he was the General Director of the PRO electoral campaign. He maintained this role when Macri was elected Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires in 2007, and when he was reelected in 2011.
While Mauricio Macri was Mayor, Horacio worked alongside him as Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers of the City of Buenos Aires. He took up the important task of coordinating teams, putting a special focus on building closeness with the neighbours of the city, maintaining the efficiency of the administration and its public work, in order to achieve a better quality of life for everyone in the city.
In June 2015, he was elected as the new Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires with 53% of the votes. He was reelected in 2019 with 55.90% of the votes, becoming the first Mayor in the history of the city to win the election in the first round. As Mayor, one of the values he most strives towards is that of listening to neighbours. This is why he holds weekly meetings in different neighbourhoods, where each neighbour can bring proposals, claims and their different points of view of life in the city.
Horacio is an unconditional fan of his dear Racing Club. In fact, back in the 1970s, his father used to be President of this famous football club.
Claudia López was elected Mayor of Bogotá in October 2019 and started her mandate on the 1st of January 2020. She became the city’s first female and also the first openly diverse Mayor in Bogotá’s history. She has an emphatic focus on environmental, social and anti corruption issues.
Mayor López was a Senator of the Republic of Colombia between 2014 and 2018 and the vice-presidential candidate in the 2018 presidential election for the Green Alliance party. As a senator, she set an example in the fight against corruption, with results never seen before, she became a prominent figure in the political arena. The public recognizes her tenacity and enormous capacity for collective action, which led her to make her way into academia and public service, becoming the first woman to be elected by popular vote to Colombia’s second most important office.
Mayor López is a finance and international relations graduate from Universidad Externado de Colombia, holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Urban Politics from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University.
Oh, who began an unprecedented fourth term as mayor of Seoul in July 2022, is well-known for his environmental leadership. He co-founded the Korea Federation for Environmental Movements and, as a lawyer, helped to establish the right to sunlight for the first time in South Korea’s history.
As mayor, Oh has prioritised inclusive climate action to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, protect the safety of residents from the effects of climate change and improve equity. Among other measures, Oh has championed the Seoul Energy Welfare Civic Fund, which supports energy efficiency improvements among low-income households and other vulnerable populations, and connected young people hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic to new climate and environmental jobs.
Mayor Oh is committed to tackling air pollution, a major public health threat. In 2007, he developed the Clean Seoul 2010 initiative and in 2022, updated it as part of the Cleaner Seoul 2030, which includes various policy actions to cut air pollution emissions by 50% by 2030. Also high on Oh’s agenda is addressing emissions from waste. Under his leadership, Seoul is working towards a Zero Waste Seoul and striving to increase the plastic recycling rate to 80% by 2026. These efforts led to Seoul’s recycling earning the highest scores on the Global Power City Index ranked by the Mori Memorial Foundation in 2022.
First elected as a city councillor in the Sainte-Marie district in 2013, members of the Projet Montréal political party chose Valérie Plante to lead the party in 2016. Her contagious passion and energy have helped her rally people around her progressive vision, which is centred on increased access to public transit, better urban planning and public services, economic development, and protecting the environment.
Before entering the political arena in 2013, Valérie Plante obtained degrees in anthropology, museology, and in multiethnic intervention. She then became actively involved with numerous community groups, including the Fondation Filles d’action, which helps to build the skills and confidence of girls, young women and gender-diverse youth across Canada. On 5 November 2017, she became the first woman to be elected mayor of Montréal.
During Mayor Plante’s first term, major investments were made to increase access to green space, including creating what will be Canada’s largest urban park, the Grand parc de l’Ouest. The park will span 3,000 hectares and rehabilitate nearly 10 kilometres of river banks.
Giuseppe Sala is the Mayor of Milan. He is C40 Vice Chair for Europe, and chairs the Mayoral Task Force on a Green and Just Recovery.
Throughout his professional life, he has held positions of responsibility in both the private and public sectors, gaining important managerial experience.
He was the Government Commissioner and CEO of the World Expo held in Milan in 2015.
His love for Milan and his willingness to make it a more sustainable, more international and fairer city led him to commit himself to politics.
He was elected Mayor in June 2016 and re-elected in October 2021.
Giuseppe Sala holds a Degree in Economics and Business Administration from Bocconi University.
He is the author of four books, including Milano e il Secolo delle Città (Milan and the Century of Cities) and Lettere dalle città del futuro: Costruiamo oggi il mondo di domani (Letters from the cities of the future: Let’s build today the world of tomorrow).