The new vice president of the European Commission, Teresa Ribera, has signed for his team in Brussels to the director of the Spanish Climate Change Office, Valvanera Ulargui, until this Tuesday, as confirmed by the Ministry of Ecological Transition. Ulargui has been a key member of the Spanish delegations in international climate negotiations for years and had to deal at the head of the Spanish mission with the last and chaotic COP29 in Azerbaijan.
“She is one of the pioneers in the design and development of Spain’s response to climate change. A great luxury,” summarizes one of his collaborators in the Ministry of Ecological Transition after learning that he is going to the European Commission. “It has taken on gigantic challenges such as organizing COP25 in Madrid against the clock.”
Although she had been in the Office since 2001, Valvanera Ulargui became director a few months before the historic Paris Agreement against Climate Change was achieved in December 2015. She took charge when her predecessor resigned with little room for maneuver. A little before her, Pablo Saavedra had been appointed Secretary of State for the Environment. Spain had at the head of the most important delegation in recent years two almost newcomers to the leading positions.
During those days of negotiations, Ulargui and Saavedra could be seen marching together from one room to another in the convention and ending up at night ordering fast food at one of the stands set up by the organization. On December 12 of that year the Agreement was sealed.
Some of his former colleagues highlight that “his entire professional career has been linked to the negotiations to fight climate change and Spain’s efforts in this matter.”
Ulargui came to the leadership of the Office with a Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment like Isabel García Tejerina (PP) and in the government of Mariano Rajoy – who did not distinguish himself by developing a strong climate commitment – where the Minister of Energy was Miguel Nadal. When Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE came to power, the new Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, kept her in office. “I don’t know anyone who has worked with her who hasn’t felt comfortable,” they say from the department. “She is an incredible colleague and a super worker.”
Thus she has become “one of the veterans in climate negotiations. The entire climate regulatory package of recent years bears his seal,” former collaborators insist.
Since 2018, he has had to deal with delicate moments. Not only at that climate summit in extremis in Spain. He was also the voice many times at the 2023 Qatar conference where fossil fuels were mentioned for the first time in an international agreement against climate change.
On many occasions, Valvanera Ulargui has been in charge of trying to explain the gibberish that the UN climate negotiations become, where the change of a verb, the use of a word or a concept causes the abandonment of a negotiating table. by some delegation.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition has not yet chosen its replacement at the head of the Office. In any case, his arrival in Brussels occurs in the midst of a counteroffensive to dilute the environmental measures of the European Green Agenda that Teresa Ribera must promote. “She is a born negotiator,” conclude those who have worked with her so far.
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