If you want some insight into political leadership, who better to ask than a former politician? Dr John Hewson is currently a professor at the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU, he’s a former leader of the Federal Liberal Party and one of Australia's most respected political & economic commentators. Alongside the overwhelming majority of scientists, Dr Hewson agrees that climate change is the most significant challenge facing society today.

Mitchell Silver is a guy who loves a plan; especially when it involves public parks and recreational spaces. As an internationally-renowned planning expert and as the guy who oversees thousands of hectares of parkland as New York City’s Parks Commissioner, he understands the challenges and importance for global cities in balancing population growth and green open spaces for the community.

“Wealth begets power, which begets more wealth“, says economist, Nobel Laureate and passionate advocate for global economic justice Professor Joseph Stiglitz. Stiglitz argues that growing inequality brings with it shrinking opportunity and a monoculture which rewards certain sectors while relegating others to second class status. But, when we help others, our community as a whole benefits.

Settle in for a fascinating City Talk with a great mind, that of Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.

Connie Hedegaard is an international climate expert – a former journalist, she has served as Danish Minister for Climate and Energy and EU Commissioner for Action on Climate. She has been a key figure in keeping climate change at the top of the EU and international agenda and she likes asking the tough questions; why don’t we do more, why aren’t we doing it now and what are governments waiting for?

If you haven’t heard of the Australia Institute, it’s one of the country’s most influential think tanks - researching a broad range of economic, social and environmental issues to both inform public debate and bring accountability to democratic processes.

In this episode, we hear from Dr Richard Dennis, the Chief Economist of the Australia Institute.

Sydney is a great city, but is it ready to face uncertainty and disruption? How can Sydney survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of stresses and shocks we experience? Disaster doesn’t discriminate, so how do you prepare an entire city to be resilient?

In this episode, we’ll hear from Beck Dawson, who is the Chief Resilience Officer for Sydney.

Christiana Figueres is a world authority on climate change and was the driving force behind the historic 2015 Paris Agreement.

She’s since gone on to be the Vice-Chair of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, and, born in Costa Rica speaks Spanish, English and German.

It’s fair to say, she certainly knows some stuff.

In this episode of City Talks we’ll hear from Australian acting legend, Richard Roxburgh, about how his experience of turning his theatre passion project into a reality, led to him becoming an expert in everything from local parking laws to the vagaries of Port-a-loos.

This episode of CityTalks features one of the world’s best known environmental campaigners and award-winning scientists, Dr David Suzuki. A brilliant science communicator, he is a longtime campaigner for action on climate change. David Suzuki shares his ideas about where governments should be heading globally and in our region, to combat the effects of climate change.

CityTalks is about inspiring, educating and engaging the people of Sydney to discuss global, national and local city issues. In this series, we’ll hear from experts who challenge our way of thinking and who present fresh ideas about things that are happening in big cities around the world—the very same issues that we face in our own city, Sydney.