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Christian diplomat Patricia Evangelista nominated as UN climate chief

Chiqui Guyjoco May 10, 2016 04:34 PM EST

Mexican diplomat Patricia Espinosa | Creative Commons/Embamexsep

Costa Rican and current United Nations (UN) Climate Change Secretariat, Christiana Figueres, is stepping down from her position in July, and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is eyeing former Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa for the said post.

According to UN News Centre, the secretary-general is already in consultation with the Conference of Parties and has officially nominated Espinosa as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

Figueres also made the same announcement in a Twitter post and added that the nomination still needs to be approved by an 11-member UN bureau led by French Environment Minister SÃ©golÃ¨ne Royal. However, Reuter reports that nominations from the secretary-general are hardly ever contested, although the diplomats expected that the post would be assigned to someone other than from Latin America.

The Mexican politician, currently based in Berlin, has been Mexico's ambassador to Germany since 2012. She held the same position from 2001 to 2002. She is also known as the former minister of foreign affairs of Mexico from 2006 to 2012.

What makes Espinosa seemingly fit for the position is her extensive experience in international relations, where she has served for more than three decades, focusing on issues of climate change, global governance, sustainable development, and protection of human rights.

Espinosa was given a standing ovation by delegates for brokering a deal when she presided at a UN climate negotiations in Cancun, Mexico in 2010 especially after the failed and fractious 2009 summit in Copenhagen.

She has then been defined as an "excellent leader of negotiations." Claudia Serno, a veteran climate diplomat and Venezuela's current ambassador to Brussels told Climate Home, "Her talent was to be able to listen to everybody carefully, and she was smart enough to put together a fantastic team, a quality that should not be disregarded."

Espinosa is expected to reinforce the 2015 Paris Agreement as the world economy aims to shift to cleaner energies.

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