Christiana Figueres, the UN official who helped steer the Paris climate change accord to success in December, has entered the race to succeed Ban Ki-moon as the organisation’s next secretary-general.
Ms Figueres,
daughter of a three-time Costa Rican president, joins a large field of
contenders for a post tipped to go to a woman for the first time in the
UN’s 71-year history.
A
colourful diplomat known for speaking her mind, she vowed to deliver a
new model of “collaborative diplomacy” and the organisational reform
that has been a hallmark of her time running the UN’s climate change
secretariat in Bonn over the past six years.
“There is a prevalent feeling that the UN has
stagnated, operates excessively in silos and is not fit for purpose,”
she said in a “vision statement” supporting her bid.
Eleven people have
already thrown their hat into the ring, including Helen Clark, one of
New Zealand’s longest serving prime ministers, and Irina Bokova, a
Bulgarian who heads the UN agency Unesco.
By informal UN convention, it is eastern Europe’s turn for the
world’s top diplomatic post, which Mr Ban, a former South Korean foreign
minister, has held for nearly a decade.The UN has embarked on an unusually transparent process for choosing his successor, inviting candidates to address the General Assembly to publicly explain their vision for the post.
The assembly will formally appoint the winner but only after a tick from the five permanent members of the Security Council: the US, China, France, Russia and the UK. A decision is expected by October.
If Ms Figueres were selected, she would be a striking departure from the eight men who have run the UN so far.
She is widely credited with helping to re-energise global climate action after the disastrous failure of a 2009 Copenhagen meeting aimed at sealing the accord finally struck in Paris.
She previously spent many years representing Costa Rica in climate negotiations but has little of the broader foreign policy experience held by most UN secretaries-general.
Ms Figueres conceded on Thursday she faced a “learning curve” on peace and security issues but her recent experience in shepherding through the Paris accord showed she was an effective diplomat.
“I would dare argue that the Paris agreement was at least one, if not the most successful negotiation . . . of the United Nations on a not unimportant and undifficult task,” she told reporters. “So I believe that I have proven my stripes.”
A well-organised group of supporters quickly backed her candidacy on Thursday, arguing that whoever replaced Mr Ban must reform the UN to ensure it could deal with a climate risk that threatened the organisation’s core mission.
“We need the UN more than ever. It is an important constant that transcends social and political unrest but we need it to be fit for purpose,” said Nick Mabey, chief executive of London-based think-tank, E3G.
“The new secretary-general must follow through on the major international agreements struck last year and climate-proof the UN system.”
An E3G report released on Thursday says peace building efforts unravel where communities compete for access to “climate-stressed” food and water supplies, while people migrating from resource-depressed climates “challenge the UN’s ability to deliver humanitarian aid at scale”.
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