March 16, 2006, the office of the UNSG released a list of five names - proposed candidates for the office of the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC.

On May 26, 2006, a second release, said that two of the original “six” have withdrawn their candidacy. The discrepancy in numbers must have been a plain mistake, because our effort to reconcile these figures bore no fruit. So now we post what we consider the correct information:

Ambassador John W. Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda and Mr. Luis Gomez Echeverri of Columbia have withdrawn their names. Both were UN New York headquarters insiders.

The remaining candidates from the original list are:

1. Mr. Yvo de Boer, Director for International Affairs, Ministry of Housing, Social Planning and Environment, the Netherlands. Was active at the CSD.

2. Mr. Miklos Persanyi, Minister for Environment and Water, Hungary. Chaired at the CSD.

3. Mr. Simon Upton, Chair, OECD Round Table on Sustainable Development and Former Minister of Environment, New Zealand. Past Chair of CSD session.

In addition, the May 26 release informs us about four new candidates:

4. Mr. Salvano J. Briceno, Director for International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Secretariat UN/ISDR).

5. Mr. Luis Gylvan Meira, Professor, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

6. Mr. Richard James Kinley, Officer-in-Charge, and the present care-taker secretary of UNFCCC.

7. Mrs. Leela Krishnamurthy Ponappa, Ambassador of India to the Netherlands & Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

From above list, I would say that the Indian Ambassador has no chance to be selected as long as another Indian (Dr. Pachauri) is Chairing the IPCC.

Further, as the previous office holder was also Dutch, I would say that Mr. de Boer also has no chance to be selected. This leaves us with one candidate from the EU - Mr. Persanyi from Hungary, one candidate from Canada - Mr. Kinley, one candidate from New Zealand - Mr. Upton, and two candidates from Latin America, Briceno from Venezuela and Meira from Brazil.

Mr. Briceno, though already involved with the UN, does not seem to have in his background experience with UNCSD/UNFCCC activities.

Unless backed by his own government and the AP6, being these days a Canadian at the UNFCCC does not seem to be of any advantage.

This process, leaves me with a Hungarian, a New Zealander and a Brazilian - each one of them with his particular strength - Environment and water, Environment and business, or A think Tank background. If I were to chose I would prefer the Brazilian, but I think there will be more backing for the New Zealander, while I could see that Europe will prefer the Hungarian. Good luck to all three candidates.