Ms Figueres assumes leadership of the secretariat following extensive experience of high-level work across all areas of climate change, including as a member of the Costa Rican negotiating team since 1995. She becomes the fourth executive secretary of the UNFCCC, with its central mission to support cooperative action by governments to meet the challenge of climate change.

Ms Figueres is also pictured here with two of her predecessors. To her right is Mr. Yvo de Boer of the Netherlands, whom she succeeds, and to her left is the first executive secretary, Mr. Michael Zammit Cutajar of Malta.