Hello and welcome to Outrage and Optimism, I'm Tom Raviccarnock.

I'm Cristiana Fijeres.

And I'm Paul the Genson.

This week we talk about the critical role of cities in dealing with the climate crisis.

We speak to Sidi Khan, Mayor of London, and we have music from environmental music

prize finalist, Holy Holy. Thanks for being.

So, welcome listeners. This week we are going to dive into a critical issue that we have

not covered yet on Outrage and Optimism in real detail, the detail that it deserves.

And as a result of that, the whole episode is dedicated to the role of cities in dealing

with the climate crisis. Now, cities clearly are at the forefront of both the impact and also

the risk that we're facing. Right now, more than half the global population live in cities,

and that is expected to grow to about two thirds by 2050. As a result, those areas are the

source of a large proportion of the greenhouse gas emissions that we're going to have to mitigate

in the coming years, about 72% of emissions currently come from cities. As a result of that,

we are now facing a moment where either we're going to do this by dealing with it in cities,

or we're going to face the impacts of not dealing with the climate crisis in a tiny fashion.

So, that's enough of a setup for the moment. I'd love to just kick off by asking you both a question,

which seems simple, but is actually complicated. Are cities part of the problem or are they part of

the solution to climate change? Well, can I just jump in, Tom, and ask the two of you a different

question before we answer your question? That's a very loyally, loyally response. No, I'm going to ask

you both a question before you answer me a question. So, here's my question. How on earth

is it possible that we've been on air for two years, and we have not had an episode on cities

...