Christiana Figueres

Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen DBE born 7 August 1956 is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national international and multilateral policy negotiations She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCCC in July 2010 six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement widely recognized as a historical achievement Over the years Figueres has worked in the fields of climate change sustainable development energy land use and technical and financial cooperation In 2016 she was Costa Rican candidate for the United Nations Secretary General and was an early frontrunner but decided to withdraw after garnering insufficient support She is a founder of the Global Optimism group coauthored with Tom RivettCarnac of The Future We Choose Surviving the Climate Crisis 2020 and cohost of the popular podcast Outrage and Optimism Description above from the Wikipedia article Christiana Figueres licensed under CC BYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia