UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has named Costa Rica's Christiana Figueres to be the organization's top official on climate change, his spokesman announced Monday.

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said the 53-year-old Costa Rican, currently San Jose's climate change negotiator, would succeed Yvo de Boer of the Netherlands as the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC).

"Ms Figueres is an international leader on strategies to address global climate change and brings to this position a passion for the issue, deep knowledge of the stakeholders, and valuable hands-on experience from the non-profit sector and the private sector," the spokesman said.

De Boer tendered his resignation after last year's Copenhagen climate change talks, which ended in widespread disappointment with only vague promises by nations to cut emissions.

Figueres is to assume her post on July 1, five months before the next round of scheduled climate change talks in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

She has been a negotiator of the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol since 1995 and has played a role in designing key climate change instruments, US media reports said.

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