Marc Fleurbaey, Ph.D. in Economics at the École des Hautes Études in Social Sciences of Paris and Professor at the University of Princeton, led the conference on "Climate change, health and inequalities" at Palau Macaya. The conference linked two of Re-City's challenges  - "Combating inequalities" and "Facing climate change."

Fleurbaey compared the global temperature in 1900 to 2017, showing that in the last 30 years there has been a dramatic increase in planetary average temperatures. He argued that climate change not only has an impact on people's health, but also punishes the most vulnerable.

Fleurbaey is a climate change economist, and agrees with others in his field that global solutions are needed. There are, however, different opinions regarding the urgency of the measures and how much to reduce emissions by. For Fleurbaey, we should not only focus on ethical parameters, but also on issues such as the importance of economic growth and economic convergence. His integrated evaluation model demonstrates the importance of the relationship between climate change and inequalities across regions and countries.

Population growth is also relevant for climate change policies. If present-day developing countries become stronger economies but with a relatively small population, there will be proportionally fewer people suffering the effects of climate change. On the other hand, if the current developed economies do not experience economic growth and population growth is high, then a greater number of people will experience the most serious impacts of climate change.