The German Cabinet approved the appointment of 55-year old former Greenpeace leader Jennifer Morgan as special climate envoy at the Federal Foreign Office. The decision ties in with my blog posts from last year that mention “Fit for 55” – the European Union’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% until 2030.
Morgan will start off as the special representative for international climate policy for the German Foreign Office from March. Later, she will become state secretary there in the same area of responsibility.
“I am glad that international climate policy in Germany is getting a face today,” said her new boss Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister and Green Party member, in response in Berlin on Wednesday.
Baerbock added Morgan will now “steer our international climate policy as a helmswoman.” For her, Morgan is a “dream appointment and an important signal for international climate protection,” the foreign minister said.
Morgan is an American citizen who has lived in Germany since 2003. She is widely regarded as an experienced and internationally well-connected climate expert and has been present at every international climate conference since the first one in Berlin in 1995.
Her role will include representing Germany at world climate conferences. The next of these UN-organized gatherings will take place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, at the end of November. According to German media, she will also head Germany’s International Climate Initiative together with other responsibilities in her portfolio. The federal initiative, which has a budget of almost €6 billion, supports climate projects primarily in emerging countries.
The appointment isn’t out of the blue. She had been co-leader of Greenpeace since 2016 and was already a member of the German government’s advisory body, headed by climate researcher Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, during the country’s presidency of the European Council in 2007.
Morgan says she wants to bring her international experience to bear to advance Germany’s and the EU’s climate policy goals around the world.
“Time is pressing; we need unprecedented international cooperation to bring the world to the 1.5 degree target,” she stressed at a press conference, which she concluded with a quote that reminded me of President John F. Kennedy’s famous exclamation of unity during his visit to Berlin nearly 60 years ago. Morgan said: “My political heart beats completely for Germany. This is my home. And I’m a Berliner.”
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1 reply on “Fit with 55 – More Gain with Morgan? – Germany Climate Policy Gets a Face”
Apu, thanks for giving us one perspective on how the post-Merkel Germany might move forward on its environmental agenda.
I noted with interest Morgan being a US Citizen and her reference to Kennedy and his famous speech in Berlin. She raises a good point; for us to solve the climate change problem we need to see ourselves as ‘Berliners’, that is, members of one global community. Clearly, there are economic barriers but we need to be thinking about one global problem, then solve it in digestible chunks. Thanks again Apu