It is with great sadness that I have to report that our dear friend and tireless supporter, not least as long-term co-chair of the ecbi Advisory Committee, Ambassador Bo Kjellén from Sweden, passed away peacefully on 26 December 2024 with his family by his side .

Bo was chief negotiator for the Swedish Ministry of Environment from 1990 and head of the Swedish delegation during the preparations for the Rio Conference in 1992 and the Conference itself, and for the climate negotiations under the UNFCCC, thereafter and until October 2001. As an inside observer of the climate negotiations from the beginning, he offered his observations on the significance of the Paris Agreement in light of history, and on possible outcomes in the coming decades, in a 2016 ecbi Discussion Note: Personal reflections on the Paris Agreement: The long-term view. The topic was very important to him, so much so that he followed up with a 2018 OCP blog post on: Climate leadership in a historical perspective and lessons for the implementation of the Paris Agreement: reflections by a former negotiator. 

When in March 2001, the Bush Administration famously declared the Kyoto Protocol as “dead”, they clearly failed to appreciate the reaction which this blatantly ‘in your face’ statement would generate, not least with Bo, who as the EU lead climate negotiator, when Sweden held the Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers in the spring of 2001, did his utmost to prove that the international community would not accept this unilateral death certificate. And it can safely be said that it was in a large part due to Bo’s indefatigable and unwavering support that the Kyoto Protocol survived repudiation by the White House.

Photo: Bo Kjellén at the 2015 Oxford Seminar Dinner

Bo was a staunch and unwavering supporter of ecbi from its very beginning and we all owe him a huge debt of gratitude for this. Without it, we would not be where we are today!

Let me end this tribute with a personal note. Bo was a gentle man with a great sense of humour which he self-deprecatingly displayed when starting an after dinner speech at the 2015 ecbi Oxford Seminar dinner with the following joke: “A Dane, a Swede and a Norwegian having been condemned to death were given a last whsh. The Dane asked for a sumptuous meal, the Swede said he wanted to make a speech, upon which the Norwegian replied shoot me now!”

Requiesce in pace, care amice!