Cities, Global Climate Science and Action
Description
The City of Melbourne, Melbourne Centre for Cities and Melbourne Climate Futures are pleased to be co-hosting this timely public event exploring how global climate science, city leadership, and local action are shaping the road to COP31.
As climate impacts accelerate, cities are on the frontline experiencing rising heat, flooding, and growing pressure on infrastructure, communities, and systems. Yet cities are also where some of the most immediate and effective climate solutions are developed and delivered.
Join us for a timely and engaging public event exploring how global climate science, city leadership, and local action are shaping the road to COP31 and what this means for Melbourne and cities worldwide.
Drawing on the latest insights from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), including emerging “overshoot” findings, this event will unpack:
What the latest climate science tells us about cities, including risks, adaptation limits, and compounding impacts
Why cities are first responders to climate change—and critical solution hubs across transport, buildings, energy, and nature
How cities can influence ambition, finance, and delivery within the COP31 agenda
Who is most vulnerable—and how youth and community-led action is shaping climate responses
This event brings together global, national, and local perspectives to explore how cities can lead in this decisive decade and help shape the COP31 agenda from the ground up.
Event format
Keynote presentations
A fireside conversation on what this means for Australia and COP31
A panel discussion featuring city leaders, researchers, and youth voices focused on what cities must do now
Speakers include:
Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece, City of Melbourne
Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities
Jess Miller, Deputy Lord Mayor, City of Sydney
Cathy Oke, Director, Melbourne Centre for Cities
Kaj Lofgren, CEO, Regen Melbourne
Clancy Lester, BeesAndBlossoms and Youth Climate Action Fund Grantee 2025
Samuel Hickman, member of the Youth Advisory Council on International Climate Change
Elmira Jamei, Associate Director of Research Engagement and Impact at the Victoria University Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities
Krista Milne, Director of Climate Change and City Resilience, City of Melbourne
Light refreshments will be provided.
This event is proudly delivered in partnership with:
Melbourne Centre for Cities
Melbourne Climate Futures
Lineup
Nicholas Reece, Lord Mayor of Melbourne
Nicholas Reece was elected Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2024, having previously served as Deputy Lord Mayor and City Councilor. Nick has a diverse professional background having worked as a lawyer representing labour unions, a financial journalist, a university leader, and as senior adviser to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Nick is deeply involved in social causes and was a pioneer of Movember the global men’s health movement, and was a founding director of The Big Issue Magazine social enterprise. Nick played a leading role in Melbourne’s post‑pandemic recovery, focusing on city‑shaping projects which included a major riverfront transformation known as the Greenline, and redeveloping Queen Victoria Market one of the world’s biggest open-air markets. Recently, Nick has taken a leading role in shaping city responses to the growth of digital infrastructure. At the COP30 Local Leaders Forum in Rio he partnered with Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego and mayors from 10 cities to launch a new initiative to curb the environmental impacts of data centres and AI infrastructure. Nick has been appointed Vice‑Chair of the C40 Steering Committee as a Pathfinder City, helping lead international efforts to drive practical, city‑led solutions. Nick is deeply committed to public service and believes in the power of communities to deliver sustainable urban development and improve the quality of people’s life. He lives with his partner and three teenage daughters in the inner city neigbourhood of Carlton. His daughters remind him on a daily-basis that his first job is being a Dad.
Mark Watts, Executive Director, C40 Cities
Mark Watts is Executive Director of C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities united in confronting the climate crisis. C40 cities represent 25% of global GDP and hundreds of millions of residents. Named as a TIME100 climate leader in 2023, Mark helped establish C40 in 2005 during his time in London city government, and was appointed Executive Director of the organisation in 2013. Since then, C40 has grown rapidly in scope and ambition. Under his leadership, C40’s 500+ global staff are focused on showing through city leadership how the world can halve global fossil fuel use by 2030 while creating millions of good green jobs and reducing inequality. Mark has been a thought leader and doer on climate for years, working in both the private sector and city government before joining C40. Mark was previously a director of the pioneering consultancy firm Arup’s energy and climate team, and before that was the climate and sustainable transport adviser to the Mayor of London where the London Evening Standard described him as “the intellectual force behind Ken Livingstone’s drive to make London a leading light of the battle against global warming.” Mark holds a Masters in History and Politics from the University of Nottingham. In his spare time, Mark enjoys running up and down mountains, and live music.
Jess Miller, Deputy Lord Mayor, City of Sydney
Councillor Jess Miller is the Deputy Lord Mayor (2025-26) of the City of Sydney, for the second time and was first elected to the City of Sydney Council in 2016. Her vision for Sydney is that it remains Australia's pre-eminent City with a reputation for liveability, innovation, fairness, and fun. On Council Jess is the Deputy Chair of the Transport, Heritage & Planning Committee, a member of the Cycling Advisory Panel and Nightlife & Co-Chair of the Creative Industries & Nighttime Industries Panel. Formerly a TEDxSydney curator, speaker and board member, she has also served on the board of the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre and currently sits on the National Art School board. Her ambition is to shift the City’s “lazy spaces” into places of collaboration and gathering for people across Sydney, by introducing reforms to turn unused space into affordable housing, retail and making spaces for the creative industries. A longtime advocate of green spaces and parks, Jess also focuses on the adaptive re-use of commercial buildings, and the urban greening of public spaces and laneways. Maintaining the City's track record of stable governance and good, strong financial management is her foundational priority. Having represented the City at the C40 Summit, Jess is expert in resilience initiatives to fund climate adaptation strategies to protect homes and businesses from impacts of urban heat and flood. Professionally, she brings 20 years’ experience in strategic communications across the private, non-profit and government sectors. Through agencies like the Republic of Everyone, and Finding Infinity, Jess has designed and implemented strategic collective impact projects that finance new projects to support the circular economy, increase urban greening, and enable communities to engage and participate fully in decisions and initiatives that affect their lives. Jess has lived in the City of Sydney for 25 years in Alexandria and more recently Glebe, is a member of the Legacy Brazilian Jiu Jitsu team, a kickboxer and supporter of the Greater Western Sydney AFL team (and the Melbourne Demons.) Jess speaks Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish and happily converses with her constituents in both.
Cathy Oke, Director, Melbourne Centre for Cities
Associate Professor Cathy Oke OAM is Director of the Melbourne Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne. She has over 25 years professional, political and academic experience in urban sustainability and city leadership, with a focus on the nexus of policy, practice and research for cities’ climate and biodiversity action. Cathy is a senior advisor on research and innovation to the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy Innovate4Cities Program; and a Lead Author for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. Cathy was awarded an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for service to local government and the environment in January 2023.
Krista Milne, City of Melbourne
Krista Milne is Co-Chief Heat Officer and Director of Climate Change and City Resilience at the City of Melbourne, Australia. She is one of 8 Chief Heat Officers from Cities across the world working to protect local communities from the impacts of extreme heat and putting in place strategies to cool and heat-proof Melbourne. She co-leads a team of experts delivering world leading initiatives to achieve a net zero emissions city by 2040 that is well adapted to climate change. She has over 25 years’ experience is climate action, environmental policy and regulations and corporate sustainability.
Kaj Lofgren, CEO, Regen Melbourne
Kaj (pronounced Kai) is the CEO of Regen Melbourne, a platform for ambitious collaboration, in service of Greater Melbourne. Formed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regen Melbourne aims to drive systems-level collaboration through a portfolio of Earthshots and through an action-research platform, the Systems Lab. Kaj also facilitates leadership programs through the Small Giants Academy, including the Mastery of Systems Leadership. A Civil Engineer by training, Kaj holds a Masters of Economic History from Lund University in Sweden.
Elmira Jamei, Associate Director of Research Engagement and Impact at the Victoria University Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities
Associate Professor Elmira Jamei is an IPCC Seventh Assessment Report Lead Author (Working Group III – Mitigation) and an internationally recognised leader in urban climate resilience, sustainable cities, and climate-responsive planning. Her research focuses on climate change, urban systems, energy, and community resilience, with particular expertise in urban overheating and its impacts on thermal comfort, energy demand, infrastructure, and public health. Elmira is a member of the International Association for Urban Climate (IAUC) and serves on the editorial board of Energy and Buildings. With more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and recognition among the world’s Top 2% of scientists (Stanford/Elsevier), her work is shaping how cities respond to extreme heat and climate risk, with a strong focus on protecting vulnerable communities and advancing greener, cooler, and more sustainable cities.
Clancy Lester, Founder, BeesAndBlossoms
An everyday Aussie who bleeds passion for nature, Clancy Lester is the young voice behind BeesAndBlossoms - inspiring people to appreciate biodiversity, especially in urban environments, rethink lawns, reconnect with native plants and pollinators, and turn everyday spaces into thriving pockets of biodiversity through storytelling, science, and hands-on action
Samuel Hickman, member of the Youth Advisory Council on International Climate Change
Sam is a management consultant at Kearney and a member of the Australian Government’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) Youth Advisory Council on International Climate Change. Previously, he worked with the University of Melbourne’s Biodiversity Institute, where he supported major financial institutions and mining companies to better understand, measure, and reduce their impacts on nature. Sam is passionate about accelerating the transition toward more sustainable and nature-positive economic systems.
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