The Inter-American Development Bank annual conference kicked off Friday in Calgary, Canada. The meeting is focusing on the sustainable future for emerging cities. Our CNC correspondent Al Campbell has more details at the scene.

STANDUP: AL CAMPBELL, CNC CORRESPONDENT
"Sustainable emerging cities was very much the focus of the Inter-American Development Bank conference being held here in Calgary, Alberta, on Friday afternoon. IDB president Luis Alberto Moreno spoke about how there was 3,500 emerging cities around the world. Each of these cities has a population between 100,000 people and two million people. He says that their sustainable development was vital for the world’s future as their combined population of all these cities was about two billion people, a third of the world’s population."

SOUNDBITE: LUIS ALBERTO MORENO, IDB PRESIDENT
"This means that most of the urban growth in the next 20 years will happen in emerging cities. In order to keep up with that growth, city governments will need to spend trillions of dollars on new infrastructure, housing and public buildings. They will also need to find vast new resources of water, electricity and fuel. As a result, what happens in these emerging cities in the next 20 years will have huge consequences for the rest of the planet. Cities in general already produce approximately 75 per cent of total CO2 emissions. In Latin America, emerging cities could both contribute to climate change and become victims of it."

The annual meeting attracts top government authorities from the Bank's 48 member countries, including several finance ministers and central banks chiefs.

The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke to the delegates via video conference, saying emerging cities are going to play an absolutely critical role in managing to meet the challenge of rapid developments.

SOUNDBITE: TONY BLAIR, FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER
"And they are also part of growing worldwide movement and that is how we match the tremendous ambition that people have today for economic growth, for higher standards of living, for the prosperity that they need, with economic, social and environmental systems that are aligned. Now this is the challenge that we have. I think we can meet that challenge but we have to be aware of the fact that unless you put the right policies in place it's going to be very, very tough to do. So the work the IDB is doing in this regard is absolutely central, it's fundamental to getting it right and I give it my full blessing and support. I think there is a real chance to make a big difference in the years to come and the place to start is exactly where you are starting, with the emerging cities where people are going to live and work - and if we don't get the environmental policies right in this area. We'll not get it right anywhere."

STANDUP: AL CAMPBELL, CNC CORRESPONDENT.
"With so many people living in urban centers and the number expected to grow, that is what’s drawn 3,000 delegates here for the IDB conference here in Calgary. They're here to learn about the three pillars of urban sustainability in environment and climate control, integrated urban development, fiscal sustainability as well as good governance.”

Luis Moreno, the Inter-American Development Bank's President, says that no one wants today's emerging cities to become tomorrow's crowded and unhealthy megacities. The IDB initiated sustainable emerging cities platform aims to help emerging cities avoid the mistakes of the past by crafting comprehensive plans that will harness sustainable solutions to housing, transportation, water and energy use, public services, and related areas.

SOUNDBITE: LUIS ALBERTO MORENO, IDB PRESIDENT
"We’re talking about a commitment to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. About a collective vision for a different kind of urban future. A future that employs innovative local solutions to ensure a better quality of life for the people of our region. Making smarter use of local resources can help us tackle global problems like climate change, providing lessons that can be applied in emerging cities in other parts of the world."