A cwtch for the planet and future generations

In this episode of Cities 1.5, host David Miller speaks with Sophie Howe, the world's first Future Generations Commissioner about her role and the landmark Wellbeing of Future Generations Act - legislation passed by the Welsh government which aims to improve the environment, economy, society, health and wellbeing of Wales and its people, both now and for future generations. They discuss the critical role of forward-thinking governance in addressing planetary emergencies, and the importance of integrating long-term impacts into current policies. The conversation covers how Wales' unique approach has influenced the creation of global declarations like the Pact for the Future, which was adopted by leaders at the UN Summit of the Future in September 2024. We share crucial insights for cities, mayors and national governments who are looking to adopt similar principles, and highlight the transformative power of local leadership in driving global climate action. Listeners will also learn what a cwtch is, and why both people and the planet need one!

Image Credit: Photo by Patrick Gillespie on Unsplash

Featured guests:
Sophie Howe, Sustainability, Futures and Wellbeing Adviser and the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales

Links
JCCPE - Special Issue on Ecological Economics
Earth may have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries, health check shows - The Guardian
UN Summit of the Future
UN Pact for the Future
Future Generations Commissioner for Wales website
Wellbeing for Future Generations Act
Welsh road building projects stopped after failing climate review - The Guardian
Cities 1.5 - Lessons in Wellbeing Economics: Engaging local communities to bring Academic Principles into Urban Practice
Wellbeing economy policy design guide - C40 Knowledge Hub

If you want to learn more about the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, please visit our website: https://jccpe.utpjournals.press/

Cities 1.5 is produced by the University of Toronto Press and Cities 1.5 is supported by C40 Cities and the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. You can sign up to the Centre newsletter here. https://thecentre.substack.com/

Our executive producers are Calli Elipoulos and Peggy Whitfield.

Produced by Jess Schmidt: https://jessdoespodcasting.com/

Edited by Morgane Chambrin: https://www.morganechambrin.com/

Music is by Lorna Gilfedder: https://origamipodcastservices.com/

Transcript

David 00:00 

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] I'm David Miller and you're listening to Cities 1.5, a podcast exploring how cities are leading global change through local climate action. [music ends]  

[urgent music] The very survival of our global ecosystem is at five minutes to midnight, and that time is rapidly running out. For decades, the alarm bells have been sounding. The burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of the natural world is irrevocably damaging our future. In only the last few weeks, climate scientists have warned that we may already have breached seven of the nine planetary boundaries which indicate humanity's ability to thrive into future generations. 

Our planet is sick and it's causing all of humanity to become increasingly sick. The source of this sickness is the political economic model our global system is built upon. To shift our planet into a healthier mode of living requires a complete overhaul to our way of thinking. So, how can we navigate our way out of this crisis? [music continues then ends]  

[driving, pensive music] In late September, at the Summit of the Future, national leaders were brought together by the UN Secretary General to encourage consensus on how we can reforge outdated global structures to safeguard our collective future. One of the outcomes of the conference was the Pact for the Future, which included a declaration on future generations. This declaration set out a list of commitments, guaranteeing climate justice by prioritizing urgent action, upholding the rights of our descendants to the highest standard of health, transforming our economic systems to take account of indices beyond GDP, and including all orders of government in developing policies to safeguard the interests of future generations. 

Keen listeners might note that all of the above are principles which we already support at Cities 1.5 and at the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy. [music fades out] [gentle music] Meeting these commitments might seem like a tall order, but what if there was somewhere we could look to, where they've already put the interests of future generations at the heart of all they do? Such a large shift might feel easier if we can follow a successful example where these changes have happened. Luckily for us, this place does exist, and perhaps surprisingly, it's a small and somewhat rainy country at the edge of Europe... Wales. [music ends]  

Sophie Howe 03:18 

[rotary dial telephone rings] [clicks] Su'mae. Hello. I'm Sophie Howe. I'm an advisor on future generations governance and the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and I'm calling in from Cardiff in the UK. [receiver chimes, replaced in cradle] 

David 03:34 
   

[light, rhythmic music] For our first episode this season, I have the pleasure of speaking with Sophie Howe. Sophie was the world's first Future Generation Commissioner and knows intimately how Wales, and Welsh cities, are ensuring that their children and their children's children have happy futures on a healthy planet. With her knowledge guiding us, we can begin to think about the opportunities that flow from implementing the UN's Declaration for Future Generations, and we can also learn about the challenges. [music continues then ends]

Sophie, welcome to Cities 1.5.  

Sophie Howe 04:18  

It's great to be with you, David. Thanks for having me.  

David 04:20 

Oh, it's our pleasure. So, you were the world's first Future Generations Commissioner, and I think—still—Wales is the only place that formally has one. Can you just tell people what it is? You know, when we first met, I had no idea that there was such a thing. It's fascinating, and maybe if you just give the audience a sense of what it is and why it was created by the Welsh Government. 

Sophie Howe 04:46  

Well, The Guardian in the UK described me as "the world's first minister of the unborn," which sounds quite dramatic. It's not actually that accurate. I wasn't a minister in government, but I did help hold a position which was set up with statutory powers. So, in 2015, the Welsh government and parliament passed the Well-Being of Future Generations Act, which does a number of things. 

So, first of all, it sets out this overarching principle that all of our public institutions, so from our government at national level, right down to a local and community level, infrastructure and public services, and so on, must demonstrate how, when they're taking decisions, they're seeking to meet today's needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It then sets out seven long-term well-being goals which they all have to work towards. And then, it establishes an independent Future Generations Commissioner. So, that was my role. 

My job, essentially, was to hold the government and others to account on how they implemented this legislation and how they were taking decisions, taking into consideration the interests of future generations and balancing the interests of future generations between current generations. I had powers to advise and support the public institutions on how they did that, to monitor and assess the progress and intervene in decisions where I felt they weren't applying the legislation appropriately.  

David 06:10 

Can you talk a bit about the seven areas that the Welsh Government felt were the areas that a Future Generations Commissioner should oversee?  

Sophie Howe 06:21  

Yeah. So, the legislation came about just by an election commitment, which was one sentence; it just said, "We will legislate for sustainable development," and there'd been a particular political champion in government and around pushing for this legislation, but she'd actually retired at the election that saw this commitment come to life. And, what the government then did is they held a national conversation with the citizens of Wales where they posed the question, "What is the Wales you want to leave behind to your children, your grandchildren, and future generations to come?" And, essentially, it was the citizens of Wales who came up with these seven long term well-being goals, so goals of a prosperous Wales, a more resilient Wales—which is about our ecological resilience, restoring nature and ecosystems—a healthier Wales, which is about creating the conditions where people's physical and mental health and well-being can thrive, a Wales of cohesive communities, which is about creating attractive, vibrant, well-connected communities, a globally responsible Wales, which is about recognizing, you know, what we do in Wales has impacts in other parts of the world, a Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language, and a more equal Wales. 

And, each one of those goals has its own statutory definitions beneath it, and the duties on those public institutions is that they must set objectives which maximize their contribution to all seven of those well-being goals. And that, I would say, is one of the first game-changers in the legislation because essentially what it's saying is that every public entity has to work beyond their traditional boundaries. So, it's saying it's not the responsibility of the Health Service to deliver the goal of a healthier Wales. It's just as much the responsibility of what we do in terms of transport policy or what our Natural Resources Wales, our environment agency, does, or indeed how we conceive the economy and how we develop the economy. 

And, in fact, a prosperous Wales is defined in our legislation as a productive, innovative, low-carbon society which uses resources efficiently and precautionately, and acts on climate change. So, that's saying that we see a thriving economy or, you know, a prosperous Wales being very much within planetary boundaries. 

So, it really is this sort of intersection and integrated approach to policy making for both short term, as in, you know, "What are we doing to meet the needs of current generations?" but also that longer-term view in terms of, "What's this vision that we want for future generations?" [minimal, upbeat music] And, I would say, that's another game changer in the legislation and it's something which is really quite unique because most countries in the world don't have a vision of where they want to go–not beyond electoral cycles, anyway, so not beyond a kind of five-year cycle. 

So, we're all taking these decisions against various strategies or frameworks or local or global or national policy drivers, and so on, but we haven't necessarily, with our citizens, co-created what is the vision for what we want to leave behind to our children, our grandchildren, and how, then, do we dock all of our decisions, make them stack up to actually achieve in that vision? [music ends]  

David 09:40 

So, that public engagement in setting the goals was instrumental in co-creating a vision which then becomes very powerful for the government. Tasking the health ministry with equality and economic strength and the transportation ministry with environmental, that's kind of different from most governments, but sounds like your role was akin to that of an auditor in a way, but then you did have the power to step in. So, can you speak a bit about how challenging it was at the beginning, with this very new model of government departments being pushed to think across sectors, not just narrowly within their own work, and how you were able to influence that, given that most of your power was indirect?  

Sophie Howe 10:30  

Well, I described the role of Commissioner as a bit like coach and referee, so coaching and helping to provide capacity and capability in the system, because if we think about the way that most government officials have developed throughout their career, they've never been educated or trained in using foresight or long-term trends or scenarios. They've been positively discouraged, often, from working across boundaries. They're taught to protect their budgets and protect their silos and, "Don't talk to the other departments," and so on. We make that really difficult. They are performance managed-- 

David 11:07 

--"And certainly don't give them your money." That's sacrosanct.  

Sophie Howe 11:11  

Exactly that. Protect your budget at all costs, even though, to achieve these longer-term aims, we might be better off transferring budget from one department to another department, or indeed to an entirely different organization or entity. And then, if we think about, you know, how they're performance managed, I think most of our performance measures are short term, so just going back to some of those health examples, which is a big bugbear of mine, we count, within our National Health Service metrics in Wales and in the UK, "How long did it take for your ambulance to arrive?” and, “How quickly did you get seen by your doctor?" when, actually, what we should be tracking is, "How are we preventing people needing an ambulance in the first place?" and, "What are the factors that play into those wider determinants of health?" 

So, as Commissioner, I suppose my role was to take a bit of a helicopter view across everything that was going on in Wales, and that's quite a task because just going through those seven well-being goals, it covers pretty much all policy areas. It covered all of our public institutions, but it gave me that ability to work out where the connections were. So, I spent an inordinate amount of time introducing civil servants in one department to civil servants in another department and posing questions like, "Okay, we've got the housing ministry here, who have committed to building 20,000 new affordable homes…” Great, except, with our legislation, they can't just be 20,000 affordable homes. They need to be 20,000 future-resilient, low-carbon, affordable homes. They need to be building connected communities, and so we need to be thinking about that more holistically, so, "Where does all of that come in?" And then, over there in another department, we've got the economy and skills minister developing a skills plan which, at the time, completely lacked anything around the skills that we needed to build the 20,000 low-carbon, affordable homes. So, it was sort of saying, we need to develop a pipeline there, we need a long-term plan, a joined-up plan across government. And, if we're going to take that further and say that, "Actually, our plan has also got embedded those goals around equity," for example, then we might be saying, "There's a real opportunity here for us to be targeting those furthest from the labour market – women, Black, Asian, minority, ethnic people who are currently not in these sort of good, well-paid jobs in construction, training them into that pipeline, who are ultimately going to help us deliver at the other end of the sausage machine, if you like, those 20,000 affordable, low-carbon homes. 

[light music] So, I suppose it was just challenging the government and asking those difficult questions. You have these legal obligations to think long term. You have these legal obligations to join the dots. "Explain to me, show me your workings in terms of how you're doing that." [music ends]  

David 14:10 

So, there's the coaching. Where does the referee come in?  

Sophie Howe 14:12  

So, the referee comes in, I suppose, in terms of interventions that I made, and the first big test of the legislation was the government had plans to spend the entire of their borrowing capacity building a 13-mile stretch of motorway to deal with the problem of congestion on one of our major motorways. Practically every city in the world will recognize this as a challenge. Our cities are getting more and more congested, and I spent time in Texas a few years ago and was just absolutely bewildered, but I think they were on 9- or 10-lane freeways there, which probably started off at three-lane freeways, and then every time it gets congested, we just add another lane, add another lane, add another lane. So, we're never actually solving the problem. 

We're not creating different opportunities for accessible and low-cost public transport because we're still just spending all of our money building roads. So, in this particular issue, when the government in Wales wanted to do exactly the same thing that all governments always do, I intervened and I asked them to explain to me how the Future Generations Act had been applied to that decision. So, I asked them to show me how it was in line with that goal of a prosperous Wales, productive, innovative, low-carbon society, acting on climate change, how it was in line with the goal of a resilient Wales, which is about enhancing, restoring, and maintaining our ecosystems because the road was going to go through a nature reserve, how it was in line with the goal of healthier Wales because, like many cities and countries in the Global North, we've got increasing rates of obesity amongst adults and children, we've got illegal levels of air pollution. "Show me how building a road is going to improve the health of the people in that region, or indeed the nation, and also show me how it's in line with the goal of the more equal Wales, because 25% of the lowest-income families in this region don't own a car. So, “You're saying you're going to spend the entire of the government's borrowing capacity on a project which benefits the already-better-off,” if you like. 

So, I think the difference here is, when you start stacking up a kind of business case, if you like, usually, it's quite narrow and it usually focuses on, "What is the economic gain to whatever it is that we're proposing to do?" If there's an alternative argument, there's usually economy versus environment-type argument, and economy always wins and environment always loses. When you bring in a more holistic set of tests on health, on community cohesion, on equity, on biodiversity, actually, these old ways of doing things don't really stack up at all. [pensive music] 

So, in that case, although it was considered to be a done deal that this road was going to get built and so on, following that intervention, the government changed their minds and they stopped the road and they instead set up a commission with the terms of reference based around, "If we've got a problem with congestion, how do we solve that problem of congestion in a way which maximizes contribution to all aspects of well-being?" And, as a result of that, what that commission came up with is reinvesting that money in public transport, new trains and train stations, new active travel—so walking and cycling routes—and some modifications on the road network… but not building a new road. 

And, we've rolled that out further in Wales, then looking at all of our pre-approved road-building schemes and a new transport strategy which prioritizes well-being over just doing the obvious thing that we've always done, that thing Einstein says, if you keep doing the same thing and expect to get different results, that's the definition of madness. Public policy is often quite mad because we do keep doing the same things and I suppose what our act in Wales is saying is that this is the marker of when and how we're going to do something different. [music continues then fades out] 

David 18:07 [light, driving music] This episode of Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press with generous support from C40 Cities. Want more access to current research on how city leaders are approaching climate action? We also publish the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy. Our mission is to publish timely, evidence-based research that contributes to the urban climate agenda and supports governmental policy toward an equitable and resilient world. The Journal serves as a platform for dynamic content that highlights ambitious, near-term climate action, with a particular focus on human-centred solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. To read the latest issue, visit JCCPE.utpjournals.press or click on our link in the show notes. 

It's quite an incredible thing to cancel a road project and build public transit, so you certainly walked softly and carried a big whistle, [Sophie chuckles] as opposed to— stretch the referee analogy a bit beyond where it was going. [Sophie laughs] How's that played out in the public space? 

Sophie Howe 19:25  

Well, look, here's the sort of challenges, and I know, David, from your own work in Toronto, you'll recognize some of these challenges, that I think to change the way that we do things and, quite frankly, to stop some of the massive existential threat, particularly around climate, that we have, let alone, you know, issues around ageing population and breakdown in society—I could go on and on about the kind of negatives—we have to do some fundamentally different and some fundamentally brave things, and it takes our leaders to do those brave things. 

A legislative framework is helpful, but it still takes brave leaders, and why I say that is because you are beholden to the electorate who, quite frankly, are pissed off because they're sat in traffic for hours on end and they don't have any viable alternatives. But, there's this kind of danger zone, if you like, between taking a brave decision to say, "We're not just going to build another road. We're going to do something different," and then the positive outcomes of that decision actually coming to fruition. So, when we stop building roads and instead we start commissioning new trains and building new railway tracks and doing all of those sorts of things, there's a gap in the middle where everything's still a bit rubbish and the public are kind of saying, "For god's sake, what is this government doing?" and so on. And, I think, you know, that is the danger zone where we really need to be holding our nerve and I think that's where so many good intentions and so many kind of brave people, who are putting their heads above the parapet—brave leaders—they kind of perhaps lose their nerve at that point because it is really difficult. 

Now, I suppose having a legislative framework gives those politicians some cover, if you like, or some backing to say, "These are a set of goals that we co-created with you all, people of Wales. I can't say every single person in Wales was involved in it, but, you know, it was a decent conversation. I've also got an independent commissioner on my back who is actually the voice of future generations who don't have a voice because, if we don't start taking decisions in a different way, we are fundamentally limiting their ability, in some cases, to actually survive. So, there's something there around creating that infrastructure which doesn't take away the need for political bravery, but does provide a different context for decisions.  

David 21:50 

There's definitely a way to win that argument, and a powerful case to be made in the hands of the right elected official because, as you pointed out, that interregnum between saying, "We're going to have new public transit," and having it takes time... although, of course, building the road would have taken time too. But ,when it's a new solution, that certainly can be challenging and I think you put your finger right on the pulse there, which does raise an issue for me. One of the reasons we want to speak to is that Wales is a small country, so in terms of population, of course, it's quite physically different than a big city but, you know, some of the cities we work with are 10, 20, 30 million people. So, in terms of population, it can be compared to some of the world's biggest cities. I wondered if you had any advice for, well, other countries, but particularly policymakers from cities. What can they learn from your experience in Wales about bringing the future into decision-making today in a structural, clear way?  

Sophie Howe 22:57  

Well, I mean, most cities won't have sort of primary law-making powers to pass a law like the Future Generations Act, but that's not to say that they can't adopt its principles, which actually, if you strip away all of our governance frameworks and our public service values and all of these different things—there's a myriad of them out there—it's got five principles for decision-making in the Future Generations Act. This would be something that both I, as a commissioner, and indeed the auditor general for Wales, would audit public bodies on so they are planned for the long-term, consider the long-term impact of things that you do, and to that end, we really need to build that capability into the system. So, I would say cities should start thinking about how they're equipping their officials around tools on foresighting, on thinking to the future, on actually being prepared for a range of different futures. That's a skill, in itself, to be comfortable with the fact that this isn't going to be a kind of linear path.  

The second point in our legislation is prevention, so a requirement to seek to prevent problems from occurring or getting worse, and we all know that old adage, "prevention is better than cure," but back to what we were talking about at the beginning, actually prevention requires two of the following points which are in our legislation: integration and collaboration. So, if we keep asking, "Why?" If we identify what it is that we're trying to prevent, so we're trying to prevent long-term ill health, we're trying to prevent climate change, we're trying to prevent breakdown in, and polarization within society, we have to keep going and asking the questions around, 'What is the root cause of these issues?" and often, the root cause of those issues will be found in the responsibilities of departments that are not the ones dealing with the [chuckles wryly] effects of those issues. So, that's where that integration and the solutions will be found in those departments, as well. 

So, that's where this quote around integration comes in, recognizing the knock-on consequences and the links between different policy areas. So, on that example of health that I gave you, actually the biggest determinants of people's health is poverty – have they got enough income? Can they put food on the table? It's about their living conditions, so the quality of their housing. Are they living in areas of high air pollution? Do they have access to nature? It's about decent work, so there's things there that cities could be doing, both in terms of their own workforce and in terms of the requirements they might put on their supply chain, through procurement and those that they do business with. And then, the other element is around census of relationships and community. So, in terms of differences in life expectancy, quality relationships and a sense of community makes up about 19% of what makes the difference. 

The reverse of that, of course, is if we look at our healthcare infrastructure; if the health system, globally, was a country, it would be the fifth-biggest emitter of carbon in the world. So, actually, there's something there in terms of us saying to our health institutions, "It's not just your job to treat people when they're ill. It's your job to decarbonize, to be reducing your emissions so that that is removing one of the things which is going to be one of the biggest threats to human health." So, this is where this kind of integration comes together. 

And then, collaboration, so requirement on all our public bodies and other sectors to work together, so to identify what the key issues are in their area, in their country, their region, their city, and collectively work out a plan for dealing with that. 

And then, the final principles—that's five principles, if you've lost count: long-term prevention; integration; collaboration... The final one is involvement, so this is involving citizens in the decision-making process, and it's a much deeper sense beyond consultation and beyond engagement. The word "involvement" was chosen, meaning almost a coproduction between citizens and the state on solutions to help us to meet those seven long-term well-being goals. 

David 27:05 

[light, driving music] I often use the word "engagement" to mean involvement, because consultation tends to mean we've decided what to do and we're going to come tell you what we're doing, and then we do it anyway, and, to me, that is a fundamental point and one of the reasons cities are often special, because that tends, in many places in the world, to be baked into the way they work with residents. Those principles make sense and are very applicable to what, certainly, large cities can do. Toronto has around 50,000 public servants, and it's responsible for public health and housing and seniors and income supports and parks and transportation and, and, and, and... But, having the departments think the way you're talking as a whole 'nother challenge.  

A couple more things I want to speak to you about – I was just in New York City for Climate Week. Very worried about where the world's going, frankly. But, at the Summit of the Future, the world leaders-- the national government leaders, I should say, adopted a pact for the future, which included a declaration on future generations. Have you had a chance to look at that? And what do you think of where it's going? Is it taking us in the right direction? Is it building on your work in Wales, or is it another document being signed by national governments that may not go anywhere? [music ends] 

Sophie Howe 28:35  

Yeah, well, the idea of having a declaration on future generations came out of the UN Secretary General's proposals in a document called Our Common Agenda, and they were heavily influenced by the work that we've done in Wales, which I think goes to show we're a relatively tiny country. Tiny country, cities, never underestimate the power and the legs, if you like, of a great idea, because we're now seeing that in the UN declaration. So, I think, as with all UN declarations, it's only as good as the implementation, but the wording in it and I've, you know, been heavily involved in the advocacy around it and working with lots of different countries and so on, in terms of what they submit into the negotiations on the declaration, but there are a few really important points in that declaration, I think, and I might just-- because this is how sad I am, David. I have it to hand on my phone because I have been wading through it--

David 29:39 
   

You know what, Sophie? We should probably all have it on our phone, to be honest.  

Sophie Howe 29:42  

[chuckles] Yes, that's a very good point. Maybe not all 42 pages of it, maybe a summary version, but nevertheless... So, the bit that I'm most excited about and actions in the Declaration on Future Generations is that governments are committed to undertaking a whole-of-government approach to coordination, including at the national and local levels, on the assessment, development, implementation, and evaluation of policies that safeguard the needs and interests of future generations. 

Now, if we just sort of play that out, to me, that is creating a pathway for a Future Generations Act in every country and, in Wales, from a national level down to a local level, you can see that happen, potentially, in other countries, because you tell me the policies that don't relate to the safeguarding of the interests of future generations, I'd think you'd struggle to find those policies, and this is pretty comprehensive – assessment, development, implementation and evaluation. So, that says to me that future generations governance needs to be mainstreamed to everything that a country is doing at both national and local levels.  

Now, I think there's a real risk with this, but it becomes some sort of like performative rather than transformative approach and you and I are both being public service officials in various guises, and you know how these things go. There's a sentence at the end of your cabinet report or your report to the mayor saying, "We have considered the blah, blah, blah act or the declaration on this or the what-have-you." If you ask the question, "Show me, show me how you've done that," you probably get not a very good answer. You see public institutions doing the easy stuff. They'll set up foresight units. They'll do long-term trends reports. None of those things are bad things, but if they just say, "Tick the box. There, we've done future generations thinking now. We've implemented this declaration," they will be ticking the box and completely missing the point. 

So, this has really got to permeate every aspect of decision-making. There's got to be support for the cultural change that enables that to happen., amongst our government- and city-level officials. There's got to be changes to our processes and machinery of government, and there's got to be accountability, whether that's through something like an independent commissioner or the parliamentary committees or senate committees or whatever the sort of local infrastructure for accountability is, that's got to be built right through all of that, if we're going to be doing this properly. 

David 32:17 
   

Well, C40 Cities is working with its members on a whole-of-government approach to climate, so we might see this idea really get embedded in cities and push national governments from that perspective too. There's a hint of optimism there, and that's positive that a good idea, starting in a place, a relatively small country like Wales, is spreading globally, and you deserve a lot of credit for that. There are some reasons for negativity, too. There are clouds on the horizon. I'm wondering if the planet and all of the living creatures who live on it need a cwtch right now. [Sophie laughs] What do you think? And can you tell listeners what that is?  

Sophie Howe 32:59  

They definitely need a cwtch. So, a cwtch is possibly one of the best Welsh words ever. There are a lot of Welsh words that are quite onomatopoeic, in that they sound like they are. So, cwtch means cuddle. It kind of, you know, sounds like that. It means like a cuddle, and the world does need a cwtch or a cuddle because it's pretty poorly, or it's pretty sick at the moment, and it's sick because of the things that we have done to it and continue to do to it. So, there are a lot of calls for pessimism in terms of the trajectory on climate change. 

You know, we're way off track in being anywhere near 1.5° and are probably well beyond 2°. The Sustainable Development Goals, most of them are not on track either. I think that there are some reasons for that, one, that, you know, there's lots of them. There's no requirement around integration. Everyone's off in their silo, as I described, trying to make progress on their thing, perhaps not making the connections across the board on the SDGs. But, I think there are also two elephants in the room, on all of the kind of poly-crisis issues that we find ourselves in at the moment, and that is the endemic short-term nature of the way that we do governance and politics and a failing economic system, so an economic system which basically underpins a lot of these challenges, allows growing wealth inequality, allows climate catastrophe, allows the breakdown of nature and biodiversity, and so on. 

So, we really need to be tackling those two issues and I think that's why I was particularly pleased to see, both at a global level and indeed what we did in Wales, it's about the well-being of future generations, so a shift to well-being economies, a focus on the well-being of current and future generations being the end game, not just growth, and not necessarily against growth, but it's gotta be growth which is within planetary boundaries and which is designed to promote and secure the well-being of all citizens, not just some. 

I think there's shoots of greenery. I mean, this is a momentous thing that happened in the UN. It was passed, you know, I think there were a handful, maybe 17 countries, who were the usual suspects who didn't support it, and I think it's for all of us now, at a city level, at a national level, whether you're in a campaigning group, a community group, or whether you're a government official or what have you, to really seize this and say, "Okay, this is about our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren. How are we going to make this real?" 

David 35:35 

Sophie, this has been superb and you're incredibly articulate, and it's very clear why the Welsh Government made you the first ever Future Generations Commissioner. We're asking all of our guests this year a question to wrap up, and the question is, "In the context of everything we've been discussing, what does the idea of a good life mean for you? And, "What does the future hold for you, personally?" What's next for Sophie Howe?  

Sophie Howe 36:04  

What does a good life mean to me? Well, I think a good life means having the ability to choose to do different things, and the different things that I would like to choose or, let's say, I'd like my 10-year-old daughter to be able to choose, is to work fewer hours, to walk her kids to school in air that wasn't polluted, to be connected with nature in the way that she does that, to have more time to care and to be present in her community. You know, a good life, to me, is based around the well-being of me, as an individual and my family, but also the well-being of broader society because society should be judged on how it looks after those who are the worst off, and I count those who are the worst off, at the moment, as people who are kind of the most vulnerable in society. [pensive music] But, the worst-off, as well, is our planet and what we're doing to our planet. So, that's what I would count as a good life. 

What's next for me? Well, I'm already working hard on how we might implement this declaration. I'm working with the School of International Futures and a name check to their policy implementation guide. It's SOIS. If you just Google that policy implementation guide, that gives some really practical stuff on how we can implement this declaration. And, I'm working across a range of different countries, and some cities, in terms of how we might take that forward. So, I want to get in the trenches really, and really help people make this a reality.  

David 37:36 

You're not only in the trenches, you dug the trench for this, Sophie, [Sophie laughs] and you've shown the path for everyone. This has been a fantastic conversation. We're so appreciative of you coming onto Cities, 1.5, but more importantly, of all the work you're doing so that, collectively, we can start to integrate human well-being and planetary sustainability in the way we think about government policy and our economy. It's not too late... although it's getting close. [chuckles wryly] Thanks so much.  

Sophie Howe 38:07  

Thanks. [music continues then fades out] 

David 38:13 

[energetic, upbeat music] If we are to stop the degradation of the Earth in its tracks and pivot instead to prioritize and protect public and planetary health, then creating governance structures which safeguard the lives of future generations is essential. What the Welsh government, and Sophie Howe, did, for their country, has created a ripple effect. 

An innovative plan started in Cardiff helped inspire the Declaration for Future Generations, which national leaders have now committed to uphold. This is a perfect example of how the actions and foresight of leaders in cities—both small and large—can have truly global impacts. 

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] On next week's episode of Cities 1.5, we'll be hearing from Quinn Adams, the C40 Centre's very own Scholar in Residence, and Clayton Page Aldern, a writer, data scientist, and author of the recently published book, The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes our Brains. See you then. 

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] This has been Cities 1.5, leading global change through local climate action. I'm David Miller. I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and I know, firsthand, the role cities can play in solving the climate crisis. Currently, I'm the Editor in Chief of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, published by the University of Toronto Press in collaboration with the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy, where I'm also the Managing Director. C40's mission is to use the voices and the actions of its member mayors to help the world avoid climate breakdown. 

[music continues] Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press in association with the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities. This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt, and edited by Morgane Chambrin. Our executive producers are Peggy Whitfield and Calli Eliopoulos. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder. 

The fight for a healthier world is closer than you think. To learn more, visit the show's website, linked in the episode notes. See you next time. [main theme music continues then ends]