Economic Power, Urban Change: Women who are leading the way forward

In times of uncertainty, leadership is key...but so is vision. As the climate crisis deepens, and people across the world are facing economic hardship and experiencing the increasing impacts of the climate crisis, mapping out an alternative to neoliberal economics, inequality and unmitigated climate breakdown has never been more vital. In our season opener, we speak to two women who are doing just that. Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr of Freetown is using an innovative, inclusive and data-driven approach to addressing the challenges her city faces, and is a powerful advocate for unlocking urban climate finance. Gaya Herrington is one of the world’s leading voices in the wellbeing economics space, using her platform to argue for the transformation of our economic system away from unsustainable growth to one that prioritizes human and planetary wellbeing. 

Featured guests:

Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr has served as the Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone, since 2018. She is also the Co-Chair of C40 Cities. 

Gaya Herrington is sustainability researcher, wellbeing economist, thought leader and author of “Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse”.

Links:

What happened at the U20 Summit in Rio? C40 website

IDB and C40 to Strengthen Partnership for Climate Action - IDB website

Planting 1 million trees to turn the temperature down - Cities 1.5 podcast episode, featuring Eugenia Kargbo, Freetown Chief Heat Officer

Regenerative Economics - The Regenerative Centre

Will the end of economic growth come by design — or disaster? Gaya Herrington, TedTalk

The Limits to Growth model: still prescient 50 years later Gaya Herrington, Club of Rome website

Turnaround Empowerment & Focus on gender equality Club of Rome website

Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? A review Women’s Budget Group website

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website: https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and Cities 1.5 is supported by C40 Cities and the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. You can sign up to the Centre newsletter here. https://thecentre.substack.com/

Our executive producers are Calli Elipoulos and Peggy Whitfield.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music is by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/