Former Barbados Ambassador to the United States, Selwin Hart, has been appointed special adviser to United Nations secretary-general António Guterres and assistant secretary-general of the Climate Action Team.
Guterres made the announcement earlier today.
Climate change remains at the top of the secretary-general’s priorities and one of the core priorities of the Decade of Action to Deliver the Sustainable Development Goals.
In ensuring enhanced levels of ambition on climate change within the Decade, Hart will lead the Climate Action team, focusing on Member State support, coalition-building, UN system engagement and public mobilisation necessary to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and achieve a successful 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom in 2020.
His job is to also ensure delivery of the Secretary-General’s priorities on climate change, from enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), fossil fuel and coal phase-out, ensuring public and private finance shifts and the transitions necessary to shift the world’s energy, transportation, land and natural systems in alignment with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Hart is currently the Executive Director for the Caribbean region at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). He was previously the Ambassador to the United States and the Organisation of American States for Barbados and Director of the secretary-general’s Climate Change Support Team, leading the delivery of the 2014 Climate Summit and the secretary-general’s engagement in the process ahead of the signing of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
Throughout his career, Hart has served in several climate change leadership positions, including climate adviser for the Caribbean Development Bank, chief climate change negotiator for Barbados as well as the coordinator and lead negotiator on finance for the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS), a coalition of 43 islands and low-lying coastal states in the Caribbean, Pacific, Africa, Indian Ocean and South China Sea.
He was a member of the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund Board from 2009 to 2010 and was elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve as vice-chairman of the 2nd Committee of the United Nations General Assembly (Economic and Financial) during its 60th Session. (PR/SAT)