Transcript

BRUCE KATZ: What we're going to try to do today is take a closer look at how cities and metro areas around the world are taking action to address global warming, and in the process creating jobs, furthering innovation and catalyzing economic growth. With the Copenhagen Summit only several months away, the focus on cities is timely and critical.

A couple of weeks ago the Financial Times had a headline which read, "Meetings are Global but Action is Local." The fact is, as how cities grow, how they shape the built environment, has an enormous effect on climate. Last year Brookings put out a report where we showed that the metro areas of the United States with the smallest per capita carbon emissions are those that have higher residential density, offer greater transportation options like transit, and are dependent upon a mix of energy sources. Cities are literally on the front lines of global warming. Again the FT, "If global warming results in droughts, floods, damage to infrastructure, it's the cities that are going to be in rescue operations, securing transport, housing and basic services of their reasons against such risks."

At Brookings we're intensely focused on how cities are at the cutting edge of economic transformation. The shift to the low-carbon economy is going to alter everything, the source of our energy, the products we buy, the kinds of homes we live in, the location and form of our communities, and how we literally move from one place to another, and this is largely going to be an urban and metro transformation. The green economy revolution is going to be disproportionately designed, produced and then deployed in our cities and metros.

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