Jennifer Morgan, the German government's new special representative for international climate policy, who is to be presented today, was born and raised in the American state of New Jersey.

But it was a book by German Green Party co-founder Petra Kelly that got her excited about environmental protection.

As she later said in an interview, Morgan read the English version of the 1983 book “Fighting for Hope!” in one go and was shocked by the environmental destruction she was denouncing.

After studying international relations and German in Bloomington and Washington, she began her career at the Climate Action Network in Washington in the 1990s.

Morgan has attended every annual meeting since the first climate conference in Berlin in 1995.

Since those first days

Timo Steppat

Editor in Politics.

  • Follow I follow

In Glasgow, at the 26th conference last November, Morgan, who has been head of Greenpeace International since 2016, was present.

She gave television interviews, sat in background talks and discussed on podiums.

As the head of what is probably the world's most well-known environmental organization, Morgan saw himself as a speaker for climate protection, distributed praise and reprimanded blockers in the negotiations.

At the same time, she is a valued discussion partner among journalists and politicians because she is familiar with the intricacies of the complex UN negotiations and is well informed.

Link between young and "old" climate activists

Morgan is thus also a link between the young climate activists, who above all express their radical rejection of the tough process, and those politicians who spend nights struggling to find compromises in order to anchor new rules in the framework convention according to the UN principle of unanimity.

After Glasgow, Morgan said the results were too little, too weak, but kept the 1.5 degree target alive.

From Morgan's point of view, it is thanks to the young climate activists from all over the world that the rules of the Paris Agreement could also be passed in addition to an end to coal-fired power generation.

"Without them, these climate talks would have been a total flop," Morgan said.

Now Morgan, who was born in 1966 and lives in Berlin with her husband, is changing sides.

She is to prepare the climate conferences for the federal government as a special representative with the rank of a civil servant.

With the change of government, this task has passed from the Ministry of the Environment to the Federal Foreign Office.

A positive signal, observers agree: French Foreign Minister Laurant Fabius achieved the success of the Paris climate agreement in 2015 with diplomatic means.

Before important climate conference in Egypt

With Morgan, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) brings expertise and a woman with the best connections into the house;

She knows the US climate commissioner, John Kerry, well, as well as the EU's chief negotiator, Deputy Commission President Frans Timmermans.

But since the departure of Donald Trump as US President, there has been little to worry about that alliance of the willing, at least with regard to stricter climate goals.

Those ambitious states, and with them the special envoy Morgan, have to work on two challenges in the coming months leading up to the November conference in Sharm el Sheikh: On the one hand, the Egyptian government, which is presiding, must succeed in preparing the negotiations well and in a targeted manner – for success is crucial.

On the other hand, emerging countries like China and India should ideally travel to the Red Sea with stricter climate targets in order to send out a signal.

First of all, however, Morgan's appointment is a small coup by Green Minister Baerbock in her own country.

The signal: Global climate protection is so important to the traffic light coalition that it hires one of the most prominent activists.

What Morgan makes of it, she will have to show in the next few months.