PRESS RELEASE
Yvo de Boer Appointed New UNFCCC Executive Secretary

(Bonn, 10 August 2006) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed Yvo de Boer as the new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat based in Bonn, Germany.

The appointment was endorsed by the Bureau of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The 52 year old national of the Netherlands is currently Director for International Affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM).

As a leading member of the Dutch delegation, Mr. de Boer has been active in UNFCCC meetings since 1996.

Before serving the Dutch government, Mr. de Boer was Chief of the UN Information Office for North America and the Caribbean, of the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) in Canada and Human Settlements Adviser with the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) in Nairobi, Kenya.

Mr. de Boer has also served as vice-chair of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

Yvo de Boer will take up duties on 4 September and will lead UNFCCC at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nairobi.

"I am very enthusiastic about taking up the job ahead of this conference", he said. "The conference is significant because some of the biggest challenges related to climate change which are presently facing humanity will be dealt with there".

"It is also significant because of its location in Africa. Africans are among the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, such as increased incidences of drought and flooding, which in turn lead to famine", he added.

The meeting, the first ever of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, will focus on issues such as adaptation to climate change, technology transfer and talks and negotiations on the future of the climate change process, both under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and under the Kyoto Protocol.

"It is important that the good momentum of the negotiations and talks on the future of the climate change process, which began in Bonn this year, be sustained at Nairobi", Yvo de Boer said. "We need to see significant progress with regard to these and the other issues."

Among other things, the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat supports the UN-sponsored climate change negotiations and meetings, analyzes and reviews climate change information and data provided by Parties to the Convention and supports the burgeoning carbon market under the Kyoto Protocol.