Christiana Figueres

Christiana Figueres is an internationally recognised speaker on global climate change. She was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

During the next six years he worked to rebuild the global negotiating process leading to the Paris Agreement of 2015, the most important climate agreement in history which committed 186 countries to limiting the global increase in average temperature to 1.5°C.

Over the years she worked in the fields of climate change, sustainable development, energy, land use and technical and financial cooperation bringing together national and sub national governments, corporations and activists, financial institutions and communities of faith, think tanks and technology providers, NGOs and parliamentarians, to jointly deliver the unprecedented climate change agreement. For this achievement Ms. Figueres has been credited with forging a new brand of collaborative diplomacy.

After completing her second term in the role, the Costa Rican diplomat entered the race to succeed Ban Ki-Moon as the organisation’s next secretary-general. Despite a well-supported campaign to make her the first woman to hold the role, Antonio Guterres eventually prevailed.

Since then Ms. Figueres has continued to accelerate the global response to climate change. Today she is the co-founder of Global Optimism, co-host of the podcast “Outrage & Optimism” and is the co-author of the recently published book, “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis”. She is a member of the B Team, non executive Board member of ACCIONA and non executive Board member of Impossible Foods.