16 January 2015: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed Janos Pasztor of Hungary as the first-ever UN Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change. Pasztor will act as a Senior Adviser to Ban on climate change issues in the lead-up to the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the UNFCCC, to be held in December 2015, in Paris, France.

The new Adviser’s responsibilities will include: mobilizing concrete actions on climate change around the world; coordinating a UN system-wide action on climate change; and supporting efforts to build a universal instrument on climate change to be agreed at COP 21.

Pasztor’s most recent positions include: directing efforts on Conservation, as well as Policy and Science, at WWF; as well as senior-level positions at the UNFCCC Secretariat from 1993-2006. At the UN, he has served as Executive Secretary of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability (2011-2012), as Director of the Secretary-General’s Climate Change Support Team (2008-2010), and as Director of the Environment Management Group at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) (2007). [UN Press Release] [UN News Centre Press Release]