The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 has killed as many as 7 million people, and countless people are still suffering from ‘long covid’. Individuals and societies need to recover, and cities and global connections need to be restored.

We need cooperation and collaboration to ‘build back better’ beyond survival toward well-being in a post-pandemic world.

Droughts · Floods · Typhoons · Heatwaves · Snowstorms. Natural and social disasters caused by climate change are not a future scenario, but a reality. No individual, city or country is safe. Disasters and catastrophes are human-made. The ruthless and violent destruction of nature and the consequences of carbon emissions are leading to climate disasters.

Typhoons, droughts, and floods know no borders; the climate crisis is a global shared challenge. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to build a consensus on an ethic of symbiosis and coexistence that encompasses all life if the entire biosphere, not just Homo sapiens, is to regenerate from ‘the Great Extinction’.

Pandemics and climate crises are threatening the sustainability of modern metropolitan civilization, which is based on massive population density and concentration of resources. Homes and cities are being ‘fortified’ as global supply chains, as well as human connections, are being disrupted and social lockdowns are occurring.

Instead of hubs of connectivity, cities are becoming giant castles. In the face of Mega - risks such as pandemics and climate change, we must co-create cities where people can live safe and healthy lives, cities where all life coexists, not just people.