UN climate chief Figueres ‘planning new venture when she leaves office’ – aide

Christiana Figueres, the United Nations’ climate chief and a key figure in the COP21 Paris accord, is starting a new venture when she leaves office, according to one of her top aides.

Figueres – who earlier this month addressed pension fund investors at the Pension and Lifetime Savings Association event in Edinburgh – said in February that she was leaving her role as Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Figueres, a Costa Rican diplomat and daughter of the country’s three-time president José Figueres Ferrer, was appointed to the UNFCCC in 2010, succeeding Yvo de Boer. De Boer went on to join KPMG as a sustainability advisor before becoming Director General of the Global Green Growth Institute in 2014.Now Tom Carnac, the former CDP executive who is a Senior Advisor to Figueres, has dropped a hint about her future plans.

Announcing to his contacts that he is leaving his post to take a few months off with his family, he said he would “begin on a variety of projects through a new venture that Christiana and I will be starting after she leaves her position. More on that soon.” Figueres, who has a Masters degree in social anthropology from the London School of Economics, is one of several high profile women reportedly in the reckoning to become the first female UN Secretary-General when Ban Ki-moon’s term ends in December.

Carnac was previously North America head at environmental data body CDP. Perhaps suggesting where the new venture will lay, Carnac’s new email address is tom@globaloptimism.com. The UNFCCC did not respond to a request for comment.