LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Thursday named Rachel Kyte, a climate policy professor at Oxford University, as its new climate envoy – the latest step in the recently elected Labour government’s efforts to bolster Britain’s role in international climate politics.
Kyte’s appointment as the UK’s Special Representative for Climate comes six weeks before COP 29, the latest annual U.N. climate summit. Countries from around the world will meet in Azerbaijan to try to thrash out new deals to halt rising global temperatures, mitigate the damage they have caused and raise funding for those who have been worst affected.
In her career Kyte has focused on ways to generate energy in fair and sustainable ways. She previously worked for the World Bank in the run up to the landmark Paris 2015 Paris climate agreement, and later as a special representative on sustainable energy for the United Nations Secretary-General.
“Rachel’s expertise and experience in international and climate crisis roles will help drive UK international leadership on the agenda and across the world,” British foreign minister David Lammy said.
Earlier this week energy security and net zero minister Ed Miliband said Britain was “back in the business of climate leadership”, criticising the previous Conservative-led government for rolling back some of its climate targets.
Last week Lammy said Britain would put climate change at the heart of decisions about foreign policy, and appoint two new climate envoys: one for climate and one for nature. Kyte takes up the climate brief while the nature envoy has yet to be announced.
(Reporting by William James; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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