Dear UTM Community,
I am writing to share a profound note of gratitude and farewell to the true heart of this movement: our extraordinary community of cities as my tenure as Director of the Urban Transitions Mission (UTM) draws to a close.
Shaping and leading UTM has been one of the most rewarding privileges of my career, largely because of the daily inspiration I draw from your leadership and courage on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Over these years, it has been the deep personal and professional connections we created, the candid conversations, and the boundless shared inspiration across our community that continuously nourished and drove me forward.
Cities are, without question, the most powerful engines we have for meaningful climate and energy action. They sit at the very heart of both the challenge and its solutions, currently accounting for around 70% of global CO2 emissions – a pressure that will only intensify as urban populations grow by 2.5 billion people by 2050.
While targets are debated, you do not have the luxury of delay or abstraction. You operate on the frontlines every single day, managing real streets, real buildings, and real power grids for real communities. Your proximity to citizens, your relentless pragmatism, and your courage to innovate make local governments the ultimate drivers of the global energy transition.
You turn ambition into breathing, working reality.
Yet, despite standing at the epicenter of this shift, cities remain systematically underleveraged, frequently excluded from national planning, starved of predictable finance, and treated merely as implementers rather than formal decision-makers. Weak vertical integration continues to constrain city participation in real governance, systemic constraints in financial markets leave local leaders competing for scarce resources, and persistent gaps in local data leave cities making critical choices without decision-relevant knowledge.
That is precisely why the work of our community is so vital.
When we first set out to shape and operationalize UTM, our goal was simple yet ambitious: to build a true broker of solutions that connects the real, ground-level needs of cities with targeted technical support, private sector innovation, regulatory pathways, and international backing.
Shaping this vision and bringing it to life – by bridging the gap between innovation and real-world impact – has been an incredibly rewarding journey.
An increasing number of local leaders are pushing their commitment even further by setting ambitious targets to reach net-zero, chief among them the 145 cities across 52 countries that have already joined UTM: to all of you, thank you.
None of this impact would have been possible without your incredible engagement, support, and unwavering commitment. It is your active participation that has made the Mission, our city cohort, and core initiatives like our real-world pilots and the UTM City2City exchange program so remarkably successful. I want to express my deepest gratitude for all that you have invested into making these efforts thrive.
As I step away, my strongest call to action is for you to keep using these channels, partnerships, and brokered solutions. I urge you to leverage the full power of this ecosystem to accomplish our shared vision of net-zero, resilient, and inclusive urban futures.
I invite you to keep pushing boundaries alongside our community at the upcoming UTM Global Innovation Summit on November 3rd in Viladecans, Spain, as we explore how Artificial Intelligence can further power urban transitions.
The UTM team stand ready and committed to continuing this journey with you.
Thank you for your trust, your vision, and your unwavering partnership—I look forward to staying closely connected and continuing to champion your work from my new vantage point.
With deepest gratitude, and warm regards,
Giorgia
