Who is Rachel Kyte, the UK’s new climate envoy?

Kyte memorably told the Guardian in the lead-up to Cop26 that the UK’s seemingly haphazard approach to the climate crisis was ‘like dad-dancing… very uncoordinated’. Photograph: Riccardo Savi/Getty Images

Rachel Kyte, the new UK special representative on climate, advised the UK government as host of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, one of several globally recognised climate and governance experts to do so. But her advice appeared to make little impact on Johnson’s Tory successors, especially when as prime minister Rishi Sunak dismayed allied governments and exasperated campaigners by drastically dialling down the UK’s global role at climate talks.

In her new role, she will have the backing of the foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, in making the UK’s case for concerted climate action before it is too late.