November 3-4, the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IUE, CAS) and Urban Health and Wellbeing Programme Office held the International Conference on Cities under COVID-19 online successfully. Prof. Yong-Guan Zhu, Academician of CAS, Prof. Philippa Howden-Chapman, Fellow of Royal Society of New Zealand, Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford, Representative of InterAcademy Partnership (IAP), Dr. Mathieu Denis, Science Director of International Science Council gave welcome addresses.
Prof. Yonglong Lu, Chair Professor of Xiamen University and Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, Dr. Carlos Dora, President of the International Society for Urban Health (ISUH) gave keynote speeches on the topics of “Urban Ecological Risks and Resilience” and “Urban Health: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead” respectively. Prof. Cunrui Huang from Tsinghua University, Prof. Lan Wang from Tongji University, Ms. Christine He, Deputy Secretary General of Global Forum on Human Settlements, Prof. Rachel Cooper from Lancaster University, Prof. Isaac Luginaah from the University of Western Ontario, Prof. Celine Rozenblat from Lausanne University and other scientists from 15 countries shared experiences and learn from dealing with COVID-19 in different cities, if and how systems approaches have been taken.
The panel discussion was host by Mr. Guan Wang from China Global Television Network (CGTN). With the ongoing 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), he invited the experts to further discuss the impact of COVID-19 on urban health, especially the urban green development, and how to strengthen cooperation to meet those challenges. Finally, the participating experts reached a consensus to publish the results of the conference, in order to provide policy suggestions for developing healthy cities in the post-pandemic era.
