Roundtable:
Can Metropolitan Areas Achieve Local and Global Sustainable Development Targets? a Focus on Urban Infrastructure & Food Systems
(Sustainable Urban and Metropolitan Development)
Friday, July 20, 2018: 9:15 AM-10:45 AM
Building 3, Room 206 (ITAM)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
Roundtable Moderators: Samuel Tabory, University of Minnesota
Speakers: Anu Ramaswami, University of Minnesota, Jorge Macías, World Resources Institute Mexico and Guillermo Velasco Rodríguez, Capital Sustentable
We are living in an urban planet where urban and global sustainability are deeply inter-twined. Actions within metropolitan areas have impacts on people and the environment both within and well outside urban administrative boundaries. However, many cities focus on sustainability outcomes largely within their administrative boundaries. This panel posits that focusing on urban infrastructure and food systems enables metropolitan areas to address a majority of the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) both from a metropolitan area perspective and in terms of global targets. The session will discuss, from a practitioner perspective - How are US and international metropolitan areas responding to the SDGs, and how are they reporting on the various targets? Form a research perspective – Why do these few sectors play such a large role in shaping progress toward the SDGs? What is the status of the science on enabling metropolitan areas to identify SDG co-benefits and trade offs across urban boundaries? From a policy perspective – whose role should it be to gather and report on progress toward SDGs at different levels?
