Paul Oquist, a US-born climate diplomat for Nicaragua, has died. <\/b>Famous for objecting to the adoption of the Paris Agreement, Oquist nonetheless continued to engage with the UN process and served on the board of<\/b> the Green Climate Fund.<\/b><\/p>\n
The president\u2019s office said that Oquist died on Monday night. <\/span>Local media reported<\/span><\/a> the cause of death was pulmonary embolism, a common complication of severe Covid-19 infection – although no positive diagnosis of the virus was made.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPaul Oquist Kelley served the people, the families, all Nicaraguans with love, faithfulness, commitment and untiring bravery,\u201d president Daniel Ortega said in a statement on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[He was] a brother, a colleague and I believe one of the most important and prominent people in this country, a true Nicaraguan, more Nicaraguan than many who were born in this country,\u201d said Gustavo Porras, speaker of Nicaragua\u2019s national assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n Climate watchers have described him as a “fighter for justice” and a\u00a0 “complex figure in global climate negotiations”, with a sharp, analytical mind.<\/p>\n Stay in the know:<\/strong> Subscribe to our Climate Daily newsletter<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Born in 1943 in California, Oquist attended university in the US before moving to Nicaragua where he held several positions in Ortega\u2019s government in the 1980s and when he returned to power in 2007.<\/span><\/p>\n In the climate space, Oquist made waves by refusing to back the adoption of the Paris Agreement, arguing the deal did not go far enough to cut global emissions and protect developing countries from climate impacts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not going to submit because voluntary responsibility is a path to failure,\u201d Oquist told <\/span>Climate Home at the time<\/span><\/a> in a video interview on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Paris in 2015.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be an accomplice to taking the world to 3 to 4C and the death and destruction that represents,\u201d Oquist said.\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s not a matter of being troublemakers, it\u2019s a matter of the developing countries surviving.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n