UN carbon market panel picks Barbados scientist Sealy as chair

LONDON, (Reuters) – A panel overseeing the United Nations’ carbon market has elected a scientist from the Caribbean as its new chair with a German climate policy expert as deputy, the U.N.’s climate change secretariat said.

Hugh Sealy, an environmental scientist and chemical engineer from Barbados, was elected to head the Clean Development Mechanism’s (CDM) executive board.

He takes over at a time when the U.N. programme, which has transferred more than $315 billion in climate finance from rich nations to poor ones since its 2005 inception, has stalled.

Supply of the tradeable credits it generates has ballooned while their prices plummeted after many rich nations declined to use the market to help meet emissions goals.