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Christiana Figueres          

Expert on Global Climate Change; Former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Christiana Figueres is a Costa Rican citizen and was the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010-2016.

During her tenure, Ms. Figueres brought together national and sub-national governments, corporations and activists, women’s groups, scientists and spiritual communities, financial institutions and NGOs to jointly deliver the historic 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Under this Agreement, 195 sovereign governments decided on a collaborative path to limit future global warming to well below 2°C, and strive for 1.5°C in order to protect the most vulnerable in every nation. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy and received multiple awards.

Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to foster rapid action on climate change. She is the co-author of "The Future We Choose, The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis," and co-host of the popular podcast "Outrage and Optimism". She sits on the Boards of ACCIONA and ACCIONA Energía.

She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the London School of Economics, and has been awarded multiple honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions such as Yale, University of Massachusetts, Georgetown and University of Edinburgh. After decades of living and working abroad, she has moved back to her beloved Costa Rica.

News


"We are definitely moving in the right direction": Former U.N. climate ...
Former U.N. climate negotiator Christiana Figueres believes that anger, especially in humans' responses to climate change, is what ultimately could change ...
Climate Action Summit To Address Global Carbon Emissions : NPR
NPR's Scott Simon talks to former U.N. climate negotiator Christiana Figueres about Monday's Climate Action Summit in New York City. It coincides with the ...
The Woman Who Could Stop Climate Change - The New Yorker
Elizabeth Kolbert on Christiana Figueres, a U.N. official who is negotiating with world leaders about emissions before the Paris conference.

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