This opening session of the two-day COP30 event, Delivery on Human Needs in the 21st Century, examined how cities can act as climate solution exporters and deliver flourishing lives within planetary boundaries. Dennis Pamlin introduced a shift from traditional emissions-reduction narratives toward an expanded innovation agenda centered on human needs, avoided emissions, and solution providers. Massamba Thioye emphasized a life-centric, vision-driven innovation framework and highlighted the pivotal role of eco-augmented cities. Pourya Salehi discussed how cities can scale innovation ecosystems and export climate solutions, stressing multi-level governance, procurement reform, and readiness financing. Charlie Wilson outlined five scientific insights showing how resource-efficient systems and innovation pathways enable flourishing lives, with cities serving as key arenas for transformation. The panel closed by reflecting on youth roles, emerging-economy leadership, and the need to shape a post-SDG agenda rooted in human needs and global equity.
Speakers
· Massamba Thioye, Founder, UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub
· Professor Diana Ürge-Vorsatz, Vice chair, IPCC
· Pourya Salehi, Head of Urban Research, Innovation, and Development Team, ICLEI
· Professor Charlie Wilson, Oxford University, Environmental Change Institute
· Dennis Pamlin, Executive Director, FL4ALL & Senior Advisor, RISE
Dennis Pamlin
- Argued for shifting from traditional emissions-reduction mindsets to an expanded innovation agenda centered on human needs, avoided emissions, and enablers.
- Presented findings from Brazil showing over 100 innovations capable of one gigaton of avoided emissions and one billion flourishing life years.
- Highlighted the need to track actions—not declarations—and to focus on startups as creators of future systems.
- Emphasized emerging-economy leadership and encouraged youth to pursue areas aligned with enabling flourishing lives.
Massamba Thioye
- Promoted a life-centric, vision-driven, need-based, transformative, and collaborative innovation framework.
- Stressed cities’ dual role as drivers of global ecological impacts and as optimal spaces for developing and scaling transformative innovations.
- Introduced the concept of eco-augmented cities that regenerate ecosystems and increase environmental “handprint,” not only reduce footprint.
- Called for radical collaboration across nations, within countries, and between human and non-human living systems.
- Argued that startups are uniquely positioned to create alternative products that replace harmful value chains, unlike large incumbent firms.
Pourya Salehi
- Critiqued “carbon tunnel vision” and argued for innovation that serves human needs, well-being, equity, and regeneration.
- Highlighted Brazil’s example as proof that city-based innovation ecosystems can generate globally exportable solutions at gigaton scale.
- Identified three implementation priorities: procurement for exportability, financing readiness phases, and metrics focused on lives improved and avoided emissions.
- Called for youth, cities, and civil society to shape the post-SDG agenda and demand goals grounded in human needs and local realities.
Charlie Wilson
- Presented five scientific insights showing extreme resource inefficiency, opportunities for major efficiency gains, and the role of innovation in enabling flourishing lives.
- Explained why cities are central to addressing inefficiency due to their dense infrastructures and population concentration.
- Provided examples such as shifting from car dependence to mobility-as-a-service to enhance well-being and reduce resource use.
- Highlighted positive feedbacks (e.g., rapid electrification) and polycentric governance as evidence of irreversible progress toward stable climate futures.
- Emphasized the role of youth as drivers of social innovations (diet shifts, mobility choices, activism) that diffuse as rapidly as technological innovations.
(Audio translations and summaries by ChatGPT 5.1)