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Ms Christiana Figueres

Vice Chair of the Carbon Rating Agency (2009-2010)

Biography

Ms Figueres joined IDEAcarbon as Vice Chairman of the Carbon Ratings Agency's (CRA) Ratings Committe in February 2009. Since July 2010, Ms Christiana Figueres has served as the new Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and as such had to relinquish her role with the CRA. Ms Figueres has had a long and distinguished career in and around the UNFCCC and has dedicated herself to the global strategy of addressing climate change for 15 years.

Ms Figueres became a member of the Costa Rican negotiating team in 1995. She was then elected Vice President of the Bureau of the Convention in 2008 and 2009, representing Latin America and the Caribbean, and having represented the region on the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board (CDM EB) in 2007. Ms Figueres co-chaired the Contact Group on CDM Guidance in Nairobi in 2006, in Poznan in 2008, and in Copenhagen in 2009, and the Contact Group on flexible mechanisms Post-2012, in Bonn, Accra and Poznan in 2008.

Key IDEAcarbon contributions and insights

• Christiana has been instrumental in shaping the company during her time as Vice Chairman of the CRA from February 2009 to July 2010 and providing insights in the field of climate finance. Christiana joined the Carbon Rating Agency (CRA) Rating Committee in early 2008, and was appointed Vice Chair of the Carbon Rating Agency in February 2009.
• At the time of her appointment in February 2009, Ms Figueres said, “By enabling market participants to understand and quantify risk, the Carbon Rating Agency is playing a key role in the evolution of the carbon markets. I am looking forward to playing a central role in expanding the work of the Agency as we start to rate important and complex new instruments such as Programmatic CDM, and as we build our business in the rapidly developing US carbon markets.” To read the full Press Release click here.
• In July 2010, shortly after being appointed as the new Executive Secretary of the UNFCC, Ms Figueres gave her key insights on the outcome from COP 15 in Copenhagen, and the outlook for COP 16 in Cancun. Click here to read her insights.
• Ms Figueres has been instrumental in the development of our ratings process and keeping the Carbon Ratings Agency as a leader in the field. In May 2009 she helped the Carbon Rating Agency conduct the first rating of a Programme of Activities for Programmatic CDM. To read the full Press Release click here.