Feet firmly on the ground in London

For those of you wondering why it has gone quiet on this blog it's because I only update it when I'm abroad on official business.

If you want to follow what I'm up at all other times visit www.london.gov.uk or follow me on Twitter @mayoroflondon

Back in London - good old Piccadilly Line

A busy few days but an extremely worthwhile trip. I'm looking rather worse for wear, much to the amusement of my fellow Tube passengers, but it's great to be home and on my way into the office again.

Thank you New York

It’s hard to leave a great city. Even when returning to one that's arguably even better.

This is where I was born. I owe my very existence to the rich mix of people in this intense space who funded what was then the Puerto Rican health scheme. It funded my birth when my student parents would have struggled to get health insurance.

I thank the city for that. I thank the splendid, charming, patient supermen who escorted me around Manhattan over the last few days. In London I travel by bike with one cycling aide. Mike Bloomberg has now allowed me to glimpse that world where an SUV is always waiting, the doors always open, the hassle always pre-empted. It was a real treat. I cannot name the guys (for obvious reasons) but they know who they are and I'm grateful.

Thank you Mayor Bloomberg for the security detail. Thank you too for the wonderful dinner at your home and your kind words at the Manhattan Institute.

We are different political beasts but we have much in common. I salute your success in New York and our time together will sharpen my focus and stiffen my resolve.

I'm still reflecting on the site of ground zero - eight years on - and the tales your team have told me of a rising death toll and fresh suffering.

We share similar challenges safeguarding investment, seeing off threats to our core industries and persuading our most wealthy constituents that they have much to gain by proving their social responsibility.

Our shared privilege is to preside over people who have energy, enterprise and creative genius. We are fortunate and the good people of London and New York should face the future with confidence and determination.

Wrap up from Times Square

More videos from New York are available at www.youtube.com/mayorsofficelondon

Speeches at Columbia University with Mayor Bloomberg

Inspiring session with Michael Bloomberg, gently sparring over the relative strengths of our great cities. Have agreed we’re both high on a list of the two best cities in the world. Shamelessly boasted about London’s advantage in terms of universities, theatres, bookshops, Wi-Fi and a number of other fields. But both cities have a shared edge on the core qualities that lift us - energy, enterprise, creativity and a generosity of spirit. Packed hall at Columbia University where I used to sleep through lectures - not because they were tedious but because I was a baby when my mother was here as a student. Today's seminar proved very lively and spending time with Michael Bloomberg has sharpened my vision and resolve to re-establish London as the greatest city on earth when we welcome the world to our Olympics in 2012.

Early start at JFK to boost visits to London

At JFK to wave off 200 American entrepreneurs taking their latest business plans to London. The last year's seen an alarming fall in visits from our sister city and the main reason I'm here is to put that right. It helps that Brits are doing very well on Broadway at the moment and arguably dominating some of the creative sectors here in New York. We're doing well in retail too as was clear in a very prestigious store, which hosted a fabulous reception for us last night. New York and London have always been in healthy competition with each other but both are clearly benefiting these days from a creative cross fertilisation fed by constant transatlantic traffic. I wish today’s passengers well with their ideas and look forward to sitting down later with my good friend Mayor Bloomberg to see how we can encourage more mutually beneficial schemes. I'll be checking in for my own flight home in about 12 hours.

NYC - the place to be

Facing stiff competition for my next speech. Slight clash with a keynote address by a certain Barack Obama! Still, impressive list of powerful people for my private lunch at Thompson Reuters. And press interest here's been almost overwhelming. My opening of the Nasdaq was carried live over multiple channels and projected on a massive screen on Times Square. Wonder if our exchanges in London should create a bit more of a carnival to get the day's trading underway. President Obama and I are both focussing on similar concerns - the future of our financial sectors. I understand the lure of legislation, or regulation as it would end up, and I get the public mood. But I do urge everyone to tread carefully on this one to avoid harming a sector that has been vital to the success of London and New York, and should - I believe - have a thriving future.
To view the coverage of my NASDAQ speech and the opening bell ceremony go to the NASDAQ homepage - link below. You'll need to fast forward to 4mins 40 seconds for my speech and bell ringing: http://www.nasdaq.com/marketsite/marketsite-events-detail.aspx?fn=200909-open09142009.txt

Live on Fox News

Early start. Live on Fox News ahead of a high powered breakfast with leading investors. President Obama's here in New York later today urging tighter regulation of the financial sector. Don't want to clash with him but have shared my concerns with Fox about the need to tread carefully here. Our sister cities have thrived on innovation, enterprise and the enormous energy of our key sectors. And finance has been central - producing huge tax revenue to fund public services as well as enormous income which sustains so many other jobs outside finance. I'll shortly be ringing the opening bell at Nasdaq. Later I'll have a similar stunt to close the NYSE. Let's hope for a record day of trading in the meantime.

Thank you Michael!

Terrific night at the stunning private home of Michael Bloomberg. The Mayor of New York was one of the first people to visit me after my election to City Hall and he threw the most wonderful party in my honour last night. Shouldn't really say who was there but can't resist mentioning the adorable Emma Thompson, top newscaster Katie Couric, and a very powerful newspaper man credited with frightening influence over British politics. We share many common challenges as Mayors and I'll be spelling some of them out as I ring the opening bell on the NASDAQ exchange later today and close the NYSE at the end of the day's trading. But Mayor Bloomberg was quite right to remind me last night of our first meeting in my office. He handed me a beautiful crystal apple. I gave him a shirt showing a map of our underground. Last night was payback time. I am now the proud owner of a hat, an umbrella and a tie all emblazoned with the the New York subway lines - thank you! Mike and I will get down to business tomorrow at the Manhattan Institute. First I'll be spending a day with some of the most powerful investors in the world, reminding them of the exciting, and lucrative opportunities open to them in London.

Christmas in London

Morning all. A fine day in Manhattan. Central Park looking splendid on my jet-lagged dawn run. Off shortly to the Disney Store to help promote their version of Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol. It's got fabulous British actors like Bob Hoskins, countless scenes of our great capital and it will set the scene for the Christmas lights in the west end when it premiers in November. It feels a little early for carols perhaps but I look forward to the choir on 5th Avenue later and I'm delighted Disney will help fund the energy-efficient light bulbs which will light up London during the forthcoming festive season. Tourism has proved robust in these difficult times, but visits from North America are down. So this is a chance - alongside others in the next few days - to put that right.

9/11 British Memorial Garden

Some footage here of my visit to the British Memorial Garden in Lower Manhattan, a wonderful memorial to those who died in the tragedy.

New York Visit - arrival

Just landed in New York - the city where I was born. My good friend Mayor Bloomberg kindly sent two detectives to ease my passage through immigration and the weekend traffic. All talk here is of Derek Jeter - the Yankees captain who has just set a new record with 2,722 hits. The City is also reflecting on the 8th anniversarry of 9/11. My close colleagues in the NYPD have been recaling their own roles clearing the debris at ground zero, and explained how the death toll is still rising because of of illnesses contracted then that are killing some survivors now. Mayor Bloomberg has paid tribute to "the compassion and selfless acts" which helped the city move on. I'll be visiting the British Memorial Garden, launched in 2003 and opened to the public two years ago. 67 obelisks stand in memory of the 67 British citizens murdered that day. A rose, thistle, flax and daffodil reminds us they came from every part of the UK and the motto says it all: "Reflect, remember, rebuild".

New York, New York

Great weekend ahead, back to my birthplace in New York. Looking forward to championing London and saluting its sister city.

It's a pretty packed schedule. I'm going to meet some top actors, glamorous fashion figures and some high powered business leaders. Also spending some time with my good friend Michael Bloomberg, the New York Mayor, and doing a joint session at a prestigious Manhattan Institute conference.

Our cities have much in common and we'll be making some anouncements about joint projects that will benefit us both.

Persuading Bill Clinton to visit Elephant and Castle

Just met the former US president - Bill Clinton. Persuaded him to visit Elephant and Castle when he's next in London.

Why there you may ask - with some justification? The answer is because this often-maligned patch of London is now at the cutting edge of combating climate change.

Plans for a multi utility services company there are at the core of a regeneration project that will involve the most advanced carbon neutral systems in the world. Untreated water will be drawn from a natural reservoir underground to meet a 100 per cent of non-drinking use. A biomass power plant will provide electricity to 5000 homes, the heat taken through water pipes across the entire development, the electric generated from steam turbines and gas engines. There'll be wind harnessed, solar panels and a string of high tech solutions to dazzle the world

"It's big. It’s very exciting" as President Clinton says, throwing the weight of his global climate initiative behind the Southwark-led scheme. I am exploring how I can contribute to this pioneering scheme alongside the ambitious plans I have at City Hall. I'm confident, as I've just told the summit, that London is on course to be one of the greenest cities on earth.

The greenest city on Earth

I've a confession to make as the Seoul Summit nears the end. I have become fiercely competitive on climate change. That's why - in an interview with a powerful American outlet - I made the bold prediction here that London will be the greenest city on earth by 2012.

That deadline is more important to me than other Mayors at this conference because that's when the world comes to London for the Olympics. It's clearly a tough target but I am - my friends - determined to do my best to meet it.

On stage today I encouraged every delegate to join us for the Games - and tried to tempt them with my dream of what they could see on arrival.

Stepping off the train at Paddington, I'd invite them to pedal onwards using one of the beautiful bikes available for hire every 150 metres in central London by next summer.

The roads should be easier as they ease onto a cycle super highway, breathing sweeter air as they pass cars generating no fumes and little noise. Thousands of trees, planted as we speak, will be filtering the air and casting cool shadows over the pavements.

The claustrophobic clutter will have gone, our urban realm subtly but strikingly more attractive. There'll be plants growing on roofs, railway sidings and canal boats. London's parks will have harvested the large investment now going into them.

London by then will be out of the global recession - helped by the new opportunities in the green economy, the City of London leading the world in green financial instruments.

Construction will have been helped by a massive programme of retrofitting homes. We don't want to be lagging behind on lagging. We'll be generating electricity from what is now considered waste. And our low carbon zones will pioneer the very best and latest in environmentally sound products and practices.

This sounds utopian, but it's well within grasp. But it won't come through warm words and communiques which is why my stubborn call - here in Seoul - is for real action to make this dream for many of us come true.

At the Olympic Village in Seoul

21 years ago their Olympic Games helped consolidate democracy here, boosted the Korean medal tally dramatically, raised the country's profile around the world and increased GDP. It also - as I witnessed today - left a lasting legacy of impressive and rather beautiful infrastructure.

I shamelessly took notes as the custodians of this wonderful site explained how all the athletes' apartments had been pre-sold before the games. I marvelled at the aquatics centre which had hundred of youngsters training hard in it - and does so from 6am till late practically every day. Sports participation here took a big leap two decades ago and has never looked back
Their Olympics museum is designed to draw in the crowds and preserve the fond memories of those games and others. The gymnasium - as I entered - was being prepared for yet another concert.

Seoul - my friends - is a shining example of what every Olympic Games could be and what London 2012 has to be. I came here primarily for a climate conference, but seeing the Olympic park has been a huge bonus - a reminder of the challenge and the opportunity we now have in London.

Seoul - at the Olympic Park

Seoul for the C40 Summit

It's a long way to travel for a climate conference. My flight - as always - was offset. I'm travelling with just two of my aides, booking economy flights and seeking the best value for the taxpayer at every stage.

Nevertheless I feel a need to justify this trip. I hope the other Mayors signed up to the C40 group share that.

We cannot cross the globe to exchange platitudes and sign bland documents. Sharing best practice is valuable, passing on tips and subjecting each other to peer pressure on the vital challenge we all face of combating climate change is obviously useful. As Deputy Chair of this Group, and with London hosting the C40 Secretariat (though another city picks up that bill) I'm more than happy to be here. But if this summit is worth holding, it has to prompt practical and noticeable change. Colleagues will have their own ideas. I will propose my own at dinner tomorrow.

What I read on a long flight, and what i witnessed of South Korea from the airport is impressive. The 13th largest economy in the world has slowed down like everyone else, but it's still growing convincingly and the roads, rails, bridges and building into town are proof of the enormous infrastructure improvements that have gone along with that. But they're also on a mission to improve the feel of the city - much as I aim to do in London. A haggard old highway in the city centre has been cleared, an old waterway rediscovered and set in a striking urban park.

There are large clusters of trees as well as sky scrapers defining the view from my hotel window, and my jog, just now, took me through some beautiful landscape. I hear good things too about the site of Seoul's Olympics two decades ago and look forward to visiting that tomorrow. There are always lessons to be learned, and this seems a good place to study.