MIPIM 2024: Cities and the real estate companies helping to build them have a core role in tackling the climate crisis, former prime minister of Finland Sanna Marin told an audience of property professionals as she officially opened MIPIM 2024.
Marin, who was the youngest prime minister in the world when she took office in 2019 at the age of 34, is a long-time proponent of green solutions to combat the impending climate crisis.
“Cities are at the core of tackling climate change,” she said. “City planning affects a lot… housing, transportation, a lot of jobs are in cities or nearby. And we can do a lot with transportation system, with housing, with being smart on energy – not only producing but also saving energy – building networks, building possibilities to collaborate.”
New incentives will only help to kick-start the change, she predicted.
“If you have a house, if you put solar panels on the [roof], you can not only create the energy that you consume, but also you can sell it to the network,” she said. “We should enable this kind of possibility for people to gain from that transformation, to participate in creating greener energy.”
Marin also highlighted the role of events such as MIPIM in allowing industry to initiate critical conversations about climate imperatives.
“When you have these kind of events where people meet, discuss and talk, it also creates possibilities to have those innovations,” she said. “When you exchange views, then you might understand that we can do things better and greener.”
Having already toured the MIPIM exhibition halls, Marin said she spotted “many great examples” of cities pivoting infrastructure and buildings to be greener.
Photo © S. d’HALLOY / IMAGE&CO
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