Germany taps Greenpeace head Jennifer Morgan as climate envoy: reports

The head of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan, is expected to become Germany's new climate envoy. Her links to Germany, and the country's environmental policies, go back more than two decades.

    

Jennifer Morgan has led Greenpeace since 2016, and is set to become Germany's next climate envoy

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has recruited the chief of Greenpeace International as a special envoy for international climate policy, German media reported on Tuesday.

It's thought that Morgan could play a leading role in Germany's efforts to curb global warming on the international stage — particularly as the country takes presidency of the G7 group of leading world economies.

Baerbock, of Germany's environmentalist Green Party, is expected to introduce Morgan to the media on Wednesday, once her appointment is approved by the German Cabinet.

According to Germany's Spiegel news magazine, which first reported the news, Morgan will initially become a special envoy and later state secretary in the Foreign Office. In the interim, the US-born campaigner must first acquire German citizenship.

Baerbock and Morgan are said to know each other personally from having attended numerous international climate events.

The portfolio of international climate policy has moved from the Environment Ministry to the Foreign Office under Germany's new ruling "traffic light" coalition. 

Germany's new government — composed of the Greens, the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) and, as senior partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) — has promised to put fighting climate change at the heart of its agenda. 

Who is Jennifer Morgan?

The US-born campaigner has co-led Greenpeace since 2016 and has been a leading figure in international climate diplomacy for years.

It's expected that a major component of her job as Germany's climate envoy would be preparing for international climate conferences.

Ahead of the UN climate conference in Glasgow last year, Morgan warned that the summit could be used by countries and companies to "greenwash" their environmental records.

Morgan graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Political Science and Germanic Studies.  It was during this time she read the book "Fighting for Hope" by Petra Kelly, a founding member of the German Green Party, which Morgan has said inspired her and changed her life.

From 1996-97, Morgan spent a year in Germany as a Bosch Fellow and worked for the German Environment Ministry under then Environment Minister Angela Merkel.

She joined the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1998 and headed its delegation to the Kyoto Protocol climate negotiations. She has also worked for the Climate Action Network, and the World Resources Institute, among others.

In a 2020 interview with DW, Morgan spoke of the dangers of not addressing climate change on an international level.

"I think if you look into the future... where the world hasn't gotten its act together and temperatures continue to rise, you're going to see more conflicts, more refugees and less stability," she said.

rc/rs (AFP, Reuters, dpa)