Christiana Figueres on Monday officially withdrew her candidacy for United Nations secretary general. “Out of loyalty to the United Nations and in order to facilitate the advance of the selection process I hereby inform you that today I withdraw by candidacy to the position of Secretary-General,” Figueres wrote in a letter to the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council.
Just two days after leaving her post as executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in July, Figueres announced she had accepted a nomination for secretary general from her home country of Costa Rica.
Figueres, who helped steer nearly 200 nations to the creation of the first global climate agreement in Paris in December 2015, was replaced at the UNFCCC by Patricia Espinosa, a veteran diplomat who served most recently as Mexico’s ambassador to Germany.
Figueres was one of 12 nominees for the top job at the U.N., which will be vacated by current Secretary General Ban Ki-moon at the end of the year. Also nominated were Srgjan Kerim of Macedonia, Vesna Pusić of Croatia, Igor Lukšić of Montenegro, Danilo Türk of Slovenia, Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, Natalia Gherman of Moldova, António Guterres of Portugal, Helen Clark of New Zealand, Vuk Jeremić the Serbia, Susana Malcorra of Argentina, and Miroslav Lajčák of the Slovak Republic.
As of Tuesday, Pusić, Lukšić, and Figueres have withdrawn their candidacy.
The secretary general is appointed by the U.N. General Assembly, based on the recommendation of the 15-member Security Council.
