International Session

In 2009 the LEAD International Session will take place in the world's fastest growing economy, China, to explore issues of leadership in moving towards a low carbon economy. Dates to be confirmed - more details will be available soon!

To give you a flavour of what an international session is like, below is some information related to the International Session in 2008.

“Cities have an extraordinary responsibility and motivation to act on climate change…Innovation and progress in taking action on climate change is most likely to be achieved in cities.”

Nicky Gavron, ‘Driving Change’ in Maintaining Momentum: Financing Action on Climate Change. UNEP (2008)

The Mexico City module is designed to help participants understand how they can engage with the urban agenda to push one of the critical levers for sustainable futures. The International Session is the final event in the Fellowship programme and looks at the global dimension of sustainability, exploring relationships between global interdependence, emerging challenges, and complex and systemic solutions. It also brings together graduates from our 12 international programmes, representing over 30 countries.

Can you push critical levers towards a sustainable future?

The London School of Economics and Political Science predicts that the 21^st century will come to be known as ‘the age of city’ or the ‘urban age’ as forecasts show that an unprecedented 50% or more of the global population will be living in cities. Many of which will be mega-cities (cities with populations of over 10 million people) or city-regions such as London or Shangai. This mass influx of people into cities has deep and significant implications for a global transition to a sustainable future, especially in the context of climate change.

Cities consume over 75% of global energy resources and are responsible for 80% of carbon dioxide emissions. Although this consumption is unevenly spread between the developed and the developing world, it will grow as cities expand and lifestyles improve.

Cities therefore offer critical leverage points for achieving a transition towards a sustainable future. If we can work towards making cities respond to the coming challenges in a radical and sustained way, the implications for sustainability could be deep and profound.

For this session, LEAD Europe participants will join participants from other LEAD Fellowship programmes across the world to:

• Explore their role within one of the most efficient levers for change on a cost-benefit analysis.
• Understand key global challenges and opportunities around a transition to sustainable futures using cities as a levers within a complex global system.
• Dialogue with business, civil society, lobbyists, activists and ordinary citizens and understand how their influence plays out beyond national boundaries
• Identify opportunities for personal and organisational intervention within the urban agenda and ultimately towards a sustainable future
• Develop key cross-cultural and networking skills that will be essential in an increasingly inter-dependent world.
• Develop global networks and connections in key regions such as Latin America, Asia and Africa through the LEAD network and its partner institutions.

By the end of the Mexico session, the participants will have:

• Understood the challenges and opportunities for global leadership towards a low carbon, sustainable future
• Understood how they and their organisation can work with counterparts in various parts of the world to achieve sustainable solutions to complex problems
• Developed the core cross-cultural, leadership, networking and influencing skills that they will need to act as leaders in a globalised world.

The Mexico session is a new module designed to respond to one of the emerging global sustainability challenges.

London Module

Brussels Module