Biographies

Bill de Blasio is an American political leader who served as the 109th mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. Notably, under his leadership, New York City became the world’s first city to systematically map its sustainable development plan, OneNYC, against the UN SDGs. In 2018, NYC became the first city in the world to report to the UN on local progress toward the global Sustainable Development Goals. In 2019, during the United Nations General Assembly, NYC launched the Voluntary Local Review Declaration for local and regional governments worldwide to formally commit to report their local progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Also during de Blasio’s tenure, NYC advanced sustainability goals in other key areas, including: the preservation and construction of over 200,000 affordable homes, the most created by any administration in the City’s history; a first-in-the nation, 6-point action plan to end long-term homelessness; policies which successfully reduced income inequality among New Yorkers; securing a $15 minimum wage for all workers; and in response to the growing climate crisis, helped enact the Climate Mobilization Act to make NYC net-carbon-neutral by 2050, as well as groundbreaking legislation to reduce building emissions and to end fossil fuel use in new buildings.