Christiana Figueres
| Christiana Figueres | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change | |
|
In office 1 July 2010 – 18 July 2016 |
|
| Secretary- General |
Ban Ki-moon |
| Preceded by | Yvo de Boer |
| Succeeded by | Patricia Espinosa |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen 7 August 1956 San José, Costa Rica |
| Political party | National Liberation Party |
| Spouse(s) | Konrad von Ritter (former World Bank executive, owner of WEnergy Global Pte Ltd) |
| Children | Naima Yihana |
| Alma mater |
Swarthmore College London School of Economics |
| Website | Official website |
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen (born 7 August 1956) is a Costa Rican diplomat with 35 years of experience in high level national and international policy and multilateral 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 dedicated herself to rebuilding the global climate change negotiating process based on fairness, transparency and collaboration, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement, widely recognized as a historical achievement. Over the years she has worked in the fields of climate change, sustainable development, energy, land use, technical and financial cooperation. She is a frequent public speaker and widely published author. She is the mother of two young women, and speaks Spanish, English, and German.
Figueres was born in San José, Costa Rica. Her father, José Figueres Ferrer, was President of Costa Rica three times. Figueres’ mother, Karen Olsen Beck, served as Costa Rican Ambassador to Israel in 1982 and was a member of the Legislative Assembly from 1990–1994. The couple had four children. Figueres' older brother José Figueres Olsen, was also President of Costa Rica (1994–1998).
Growing up in La Lucha, Figueres attended the local Cecilia Orlich grammar school. She moved to the German Humboldt Schule in the capital and later graduated from Lincoln High School. She travelled to England for a year of A Level studies before entering Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. As part of her studies in anthropology, she lived in Bribri, Talamanca, a remote indigenous village in the Southeastern plateau of Costa Rica for one year, designing a culturally-sensitive literacy program which was used by the Ministry of Education for several years.
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