BoE chief appointed as UN special envoy for climate action

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Bank of England (BoE) Governor Mark Carney as UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, the UN chief's press office said in a statement.

At present, Carney is Governor of Bank of England. He will become a member of UN staff at the point at which he ceases to work for the British central bank, Guterres' press office said in a separate statement.

Carney's term of office at the Bank of England officially ends on January 31, 2020, Xinhua reported.

As special envoy, Carney will focus on the ambitious implementation of climate action, with special attention to significantly shifting public and private financial markets and mobilising private finance to the levels needed to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celcius, said Guterres' press office.

According to the BoE statement, Carney will support the Secretary-General's strategy in climate action and finance for the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting in Glasgow, UK in November 2020.

Carney said: "I am honored to have been asked by the Secretary-General to take on this important role to help transform climate finance ahead of the COP26 meetings in Glasgow next November."

"This provides a platform to bring the risks from climate change and the opportunities from the transition to a net zero economy into the heart of financial decision-making," said Carney.

"To do so, the disclosures of climate risk must become comprehensive, climate risk management must be transformed, and investing for a net-zero world must go mainstream," said Carney.

Carney was born in Canada in 1965 and holds Canadian, British and Irish citizenship. He won a Bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University and went on to receive a Master's degree and a doctorate in economics from Oxford University.

Michael Bloomberg, who is running for U.S. president, resigned as the UN secretary-general's special envoy for climate action on November 11.