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London - A panel overseeing the United Nations' carbon market has elected a scientist from the Caribbean as its new chair with a German climate policy expert as deputy, says the climate change secretariat.
Hugh Sealy, an environmental scientist and chemical engineer from Barbados, was elected to head the Clean Development Mechanism's (CDM) executive board.
Rich nations
He takes over at a time when the UN programme, which has transferred more than $315bn in climate finance from rich nations to poor ones since its 2005 inception, has stalled.
Supply of the tradeable credits it generates has ballooned while their prices plummeted after many rich nations declined to use the market to help meet emissions goals.
Sealy, who teaches at St George's University in Grenada, was vice chair of the board for the past 12 months and takes over from Norway's Peer Stiansen.
Germany's Lambert Schneider, a researcher in carbon markets, climate and energy policy, was elected vice chair, the secretariat said.
Emissions
They will serve as panel's chairs until 2015.
The CDM lets companies, governments and individuals fund greenhouse gas reduction projects in developing nations and in return they receive carbon offsets that can be used against their own emissions targets or sold for profit.
The offset prices have crashed by 95% over the past five years to below 55c.
