Urban Sustainability - The Future of our Cities

Prof. Richard Burdett is Professor of Urban Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and director of LSE Cities and the Urban Age programme. He was Chief Adviser on Architecture and Urbanism for the London 2012 Olympics from 2006 to 2009, architectural adviser to the Mayor of London from 2001 to 2006 and is now advising the Olympic Park Legacy Company on the future development of London's Olympic site. He has curated numerous exhibitions including 'Global Cities' at Tate Modern, was Director of the 2006 Architecture Biennale in Venice and chairman of the Jury for the 2007 Mies van der Rohe Prize. He is architectural adviser to the cities of Genova and Parma, and a member of the Milan Expo 2015 masterplan team. He is a Council member of the Royal College of Art and sits on the Mayor of London's Promote London Council. He is the editor of 'The Endless City', published by Phaidon in 2008, and author of numerous publications on architecture and cities.

Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer is professor of the Economics of Climate Change at Technical University Berlin and Co-Chair of the Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won the Nobel Peace Price in 2007. He is deputy-director and chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, where he also leads Research Domain III (Sustainable Solutions) focusing on the Economics of Atmospheric Stabilisation. Prof. Edenhofer regularly publishes articles in leading scientific journals and authored a number of books. He is a member of the Academy of Sciences Hamburg, the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Hanse Institute of Advanced Study as well as various scientific advisory boards. In addition to his teaching and research, he is actively involved in public policy and in the public debate in Germany and at the EU level. Until 2009 he was key climate change advisor to federal foreign minister and deputy-chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier.