Felipe Calderón

Former President of Mexico

Felipe Calderón served as President of Mexico from December 1, 2006, to November 30, 2012, and was leader of Mexico’s National Action Party (PAN) from 1996 to 1999.

While president, Calderón made sustainability a core value across all of government. One example was the priority given to the generation of electricity from renewable sources, which rose to 27 percent of the total generated. In addition he put in place a set of energy-saving programs such as appliance substitutions and the biggest energy-saving bulb exchange program in the world.

Furthermore, he more than doubled the volume of wastewater treated in Mexico.

And thanks to an innovative program of paying for environmental services to mainly indigenous communities, the rate of deforestation in Mexico fell by more than half while at the same time helping some of the poorest communities in the country.

Calderón also played a vital leadership role in the success of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP16) in Cancún, which led to the Cancún Accord that changed the conversation and laid the groundwork for real agreements. For the first time ever developing countries committed to real emissions targets.

Calderón was previously director of Banobras, a state-owned development bank, in 2003, before serving as Secretary of Energy in 2004.

During his parliamentary career, he served as a representative in the legislative assembly of the Federal District from 1988 to 1991 and was a representative in the federal Chamber of Deputies from 1991 to 1994.

Calderón is currently serving as the inaugural Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Calderón holds a law degree from the Escuela Libre de Derecho and an M.A. in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. He earned a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University in 2000.

Calderón comes from a political family. His father was a co-founder of the National Action Party and an important political figure. As a student, the younger Calderón served as leader of the party’s youth movement.

He is married to Margarita Zavala, who served in the Mexican Congress from 2003 to 2006. They have three children.