UN chief appoints new climate chief

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday appointed Patricia Espinosa Cantellano of Mexico as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The appointment was made after consultation with the Conference of Parties through its bureau, according to UN Spokesperson's Office.

Espinosa Cantellano will succeed Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica for the position.

Currently, Espinosa Cantellano is Mexico's ambassador to Germany. She was the country's minister of foreign affairs from 2006 to 2012 and presided over an annual UN climate summit in Cancun, Mexico in 2010.

UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty which entered into force in 1994. The parties to the convention have met annually from 1995 in Conference of Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change.

At the Paris climate conference (COP 21) in December 2015, 196 parties to the UNFCCC adopted a historic climate agreement which aims to hold global average temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and preferably limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

On April 22, 175 countries inked the agreement at the UN headquarters. After the signing, the Paris Agreement needs 55 nations that together account for 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to ratify it before it can enter into force. Endit