The meeting of the mayors.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams greeted London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Monday during the Brit’s visit to the Big Apple. Adams hosted the English politician at City Hall on May 9 where the pair held a joint conference to announce that they will both be signing onto C40’s Good Food Cities Declaration while also promoting tourism.
Adams began the proceedings on the defensive, opposing criticisms regarding his recent trips out of the city he presides over, calling the ventures learning experiences.
“Here in New York, when I leave the city, they criticize me, probably in London they encourage you to explore. If you are a mayor that only stands on your block, you are not going to solve the problems of the globe, and I’m not going to do that to New York, and those who don’t understand that the way goes a city goes the entire globe, and we better start thinking globally if we want to solve global problems,” Mayor Adams said.
London Mayor Khan underscored that his visit from across the pond is to help promote tourism between the two major cities following the softening of COVID-19 protocols. After being shut down and shut in for so long at the behest of the deadly virus, both Adams and Khan are encouraging citizens of each city to visit one another.
“We’ve lost lives. We’ve lost our livelihoods. And I’m here in New York unashamedly banging the drum for London, banging the drum for Americans to come to our great city as tourists, as students to invest, to do business, and vice versa. Eric, we’ll be making sure the Londoners know it’s time for New York City,” Khan said, calling New York London’s kindred spirit.
Mayor Adams agreed stating that COVID-19 has had a horrific effect on both London and New York—specifically both cities have an economy that relies heavily on tourism and international business.
“Two years of COVID, over two years of COVID, both our cities have gone through traumatic experiences from the economic recovery to climate change and public health, New York and London are working to move our cities forward. And we’re proud to be part of the C40 Cities Group, chaired by Mayor Khan,” Adams said.
C40 is a global network of mayors working toward confronting the climate crisis while also improving equity and living conditions so that together they collaborate on ways to halve emissions within the next ten years. According to Mayor Khan, there are already 97 mega cities across the world taking part in C40.
“We’re committing to a future where city dwellers have access to sustainable, nutritious, and delicious food. And that as little as possible go to waste, little as possible will go to waste. That’s crucial for our environment. We’re continuing to look at how do we get this accomplished in a real way by committing to a future of real possibilities around healthy food and healthy planet. We must work towards a food system that is a good food system for people and the planet, we have not done that in the past,” Adams said.
