Federal Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel has congratulated Yvo de Boer on his appointment as the new Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan nominated the 52-year old Dutchman on 10 August.
"As the host country of the Climate Change Secretariat and with its pioneering role in international climate protection Germany is particularly closely linked with your new working environment," stated Minister Gabriel is his congratulatory letter to Executive Secretary de Boer. "I am looking forward to continuing the excellent and close cooperation between my Ministry and the Climate Change Secretariat under your tenure.
International climate policy is facing landmark decisions. I will do everything in my power to make sure that the further development of the international climate protection regime, which was initiated at the last Climate Change Conference in Montreal, will lead to an agreement which permits us to prevent a global warming of more than two degrees Celsius. To facilitate this process, I plan to make international climate protection my priority for the German presidency of the European Union and the G8.
I am convinced that you will find excellent working conditions in the UN City of Bonn. Only a few weeks ago, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel came to Bonn to open the new UN Campus. In the next two years the Climate Change Secretariat will find a new home in the 'Altes Abgeordnetenhochhaus' in the immediate vicinity. This means that for the first time all UN organisations in Bonn will be united in one place."
Before his appointment as head of the Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer was Director of International Affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. Mr de Boer will take up his duties on 4 September as successor to Joke Waller-Hunter, who died last year at the age of 58.