00:02Good afternoon, everyone.
00:04It is my great pleasure to welcome you to New York City.
00:09Many of you have traveled thousands of miles to join us,
00:12and we are so delighted that you did.
00:15I want to thank all those who organized this conference,
00:19the many who have planned the logistics needed to bring the world together,
00:22and all those who continue to believe, as I do,
00:25in the deep value of international cooperation.
00:28And I want to acknowledge those who have convened us, C40 Cities and UCLG,
00:33in partnership with the Mayor's Migration Council.
00:37I have been thinking these past days about the world gathering here in New York City,
00:43how no matter where you come from, you will find something here that feels like home.
00:49It is my favorite thing about New York, how it contains a million worlds in one.
00:56Visitors from China can find food that tastes like what they grew up eating in not one, but three Chinatowns.
01:03Visitors from Turkey or Korea can dip into the baths that both remind them of Istanbul or Seoul,
01:08and immediately cure jet lag.
01:10And if you are the Mayor of Manchester, you can stand shoulder to shoulder with New Yorkers in a crowded
01:14bar as your club,
01:15whichever one you support, puts in a performance markedly worse than Arsenal.
01:20Although, honestly, this morning was a very tough one if anyone was watching.
01:24In all seriousness, I have been thinking too about how New York City seeks to understand these many worlds,
01:30how we display them, and how we share them with those we are so delighted to welcome to our city.
01:35In short, my friends, I have been thinking about the concept of the museum.
01:40Each of our cities have world-class museums that we are so proud of.
01:45Amsterdam has the Rijksmuseum, Jakarta has the Elephant Museum, Paris has Le Invalid.
01:52New York is no exception.
01:54People travel thousands of miles to see the masterpieces housed at the Met,
01:59the incredible artifacts displayed at the New York Transit Museum,
02:02the history and fauna brought to life at the Museum of Natural History.
02:06And yet I know that I am speaking to a collection of leaders devoted to a shared purpose,
02:11preserving the museum and the city as distinct concepts.
02:16All around us, there are enormous forces seeking to flatten the distance between the two.
02:21There is the cost of living crisis, which we know is not constrained by borders.
02:25When New Yorkers cannot afford to send their children to childcare,
02:29when Barcelonians cannot afford a home in the city,
02:32when Torontonians cannot afford the cost of public transit,
02:35our cities no longer remain places that working people can live and shape,
02:39but museums that we observe from afar,
02:42great monuments to a once joyful past that perhaps we can visit one weekend a month.
02:48There is the growing impact of the climate crisis.
02:51When rising sea levels make flooding a regular occurrence in low-lying parts of our five boroughs,
02:57or when soaring temperatures push Freetown residents out of neighborhoods where they have lived for generations,
03:03or when you cannot endure a summer in Rome without air conditioning,
03:06the working people leave, and all that remain are the wealthy who can afford these costs,
03:12and marble statues that do not sweat under the sun.
03:15And we must contend with a moment where authoritarianism and far-right movements are ascendant,
03:20when anti-democratic sentiment is on the rise,
03:24when leaders both in the United States and overseas make it their mission to demonize and terrorize immigrants,
03:30when they seek to accumulate political capital by targeting our LGBTQIA plus neighbors,
03:35when they roll back the freedoms that have been hard won by the press or those fighting for reproductive or
03:41civil rights,
03:42our cities become darker, lonelier places,
03:46and our monuments to the progress of the past come to possess a cruel sort of irony.
03:51We cannot allow this to come to pass.
03:54The work of making our cities belong to everyone, no matter how much they earn or where they come from,
03:59is a shared purpose that we are all so fortunate to hold.
04:03From Konya to Copenhagen, from Milan to Mexico City,
04:06what an immense opportunity we possess to expand freedom to as many people as possible,
04:12to prove that democracy does not only live in the ballot box,
04:16but in material improvements we deliver to our constituents' lives,
04:19and to show that good governance is not an abstract idea,
04:23but rather a force felt each time a bus runs faster,
04:27each time a roof does not leak when it rains,
04:30and each time someone can afford a dignified life in the city they love.
04:34I am so grateful that we are together for the next few days to discuss this work,
04:38because what we are all trying to achieve is deeply interconnected.
04:42For we know that solidarity is not just a slogan.
04:46It is a practice, and as we hold panels, conversations, and plenary sessions,
04:50my sincere hope is that this conference marks only the beginning of a new era of cooperation and emulation.
04:57Let us learn what succeeded and failed from the initiatives those in this room have led.
05:03Let us ask questions and then take back what we learned to our cities.
05:06Let the relationships we form here endure for years to come,
05:10and let us lean on one another in times of success and adversity alike.
05:14The people of the world look to our cities for greatness.
05:18They expect it in the art we create, the architectural marvels we build,
05:23the coexistence across cultures that exist with unparalleled harmony in the urban centers we lead.
05:28Together we can create a new expectation of public greatness from those same cities.
05:33When the world is straining to find a way to overcome inequality,
05:37to defeat authoritarianism, to chart a future of progress,
05:40let them look to our cities as proof that it is, in fact, possible.
05:44After all, the global challenges we face cannot be solved in isolation.
05:49Our cities can and must be laboratories of innovation,
05:53places where new initiatives are tested, developed, and then expanded at larger scale,
05:58places that set new standards in how we serve the people of the world.
06:02It is an enormous privilege to welcome you all to New York City and to do this work alongside you.
06:17And with that being said, I would like to now introduce the co-chair for the 2026 U-20 Cycle,
06:23representing the City of Los Angeles, Deputy Mayor Dilpreet Siddu.
06:27Thank you very much.
06:28Thank you very much.
06:29.
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