Deputy Director, International Climate Negotiations and Engagement

Tackling international climate change is a critical role for DESNZ. The International Net Zero Directorate leads this work across Government, in close partnership with FCDO, Cabinet Office, No.10, HM Treasury and Defra.
We’re looking for someone to join our leadership team with proven international negotiations experience who has demonstrated their ability to drive outcomes in a large and complex multilateral process. You’ll need to be quickly able to gain the confidence of a wide and varied set of stakeholders and make critical decisions at pace. You will have analytical and policy skills and the ability to operate effectively across government to deliver.
Providing excellent team management and leadership to a high-pressured, fantastic team of policy officials supporting capability and personal development. As well as people leadership, you will champion diversity and inclusion while ensuring that we continue to deliver as a high performing team, You will work alongside the UK Lead Climate Negotiator at the heart of a critical multilateral process, leveraging relationships with senior counterparts across governments and beyond, so will need to have excellent interpersonal, influencing and communication skills to build and maintain strategic relationships. You will be working in a very dynamic and fast paced environment and so must be comfortable dealing with change and new and novel issues, be able to show excellent judgement and the ability to provide robust advice and identify key issues quickly and confidently from complex, technical negotiations. The successful candidate will be able to lead strategy development, lead through their own team and a network of wider teams across HM Government and demonstrate inspiring and effective leadership.
There will be some travel requirement averaged across the year, + Providing excellent team management leading the UK’s climate negotiations and engagement team to develop and deliver overall UK negotiations policy and strategy in the UNFCCC, G7 and G20; working across UK departments to ensure wider UK interests are met.
+ Oversee the development of strategy for keeping 1.5 degrees in reach through multilateral processes; including the development and delivery of an NDC lobbying campaign ahead of COP30
+ Work alongside the UK Lead Climate Negotiator to represent the UK externally as lead climate negotiator in the G7, G20 and UNFCCC process; building relationships with international counterparts, institutions and civil society to maximise influence and enhance UK reputation.
+ Advise and support DESNZ Ministers on approach to climate negotiations across all international fora.
+ Role model cross-DESNZ working to contribute to overall International Net Zero strategy and ensure join up between teams
+ Championing diversity and inclusion, supporting capability and personal development of all team members while ensuring a positive working environment in which wellbeing is prioritised in stressful environments., 2. A Statement of Suitability (no more than 1000 words) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience provide evidence of your suitability for the role, with particular reference to the essential criteria in the person specification.
3. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to undertake a series of psychometric assessments as part of the recruitment process prior to the final interview. This assessment will not result in a ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ decision. Rather it is designed to support the panels decision making and highlight areas for the panel to explore further at interview.
4. Final Interview, candidates will be required to prepare a presentation whichwill form part of the final interview. Full details of the assessment process willbe provided to shortlisted candidates.
Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.
This role has a minimum assignment duration of 3 years. An assignment duration is the period of time a Senior Civil Servant is expected to remain in the same post to enable them to deliver on the agreed key business outcomes. The assignment duration also supports your career through building your depth of expertise.
As part of accepting this role you will be agreeing to the expected assignment duration set out above. This will not result in a contractual change to your terms and conditions. Please note this is an expectation only, it is not something which is written into your terms and conditions or indeed which the employing organisation or you are bound by. It will depend on your personal circumstances at a particular time and business needs, for example, would not preclude any absence like family friendly leave. It is nonetheless an important expectation, which is why we ask you to confirm you agree to the assignment duration set out above.

Security
Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.
Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).
People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements
This job is broadly open to the following groups:
+ UK nationals
+ nationals of the Republic of Ireland
+ nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
+ nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
+ nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
+ individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
+ Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

The successful candidate will be able to demonstrate the following essential criteria:
(1)Confident, empowering, inspiring and visible leader, with experience of building inclusive and inspiring high-performing teams with a strong focus on delivery.
(2)Direct experience of international negotiations in a multilateral forum such as the UN and securing challenging outcomes.
(3)A strong understanding of the key drivers to achieve International Net Zero and previous experience in international climate policy.
(4)A powerful communicator, who has experience operating across a complex international landscape with multiple stakeholders, influencing senior international counterparts in a highly political context, and securing the confidence of Ministers and Senior Civil Servants (or their equivalent) to achieve outcomes through strong relationships and delivering through others.
(5)Strong experience of people leadership, supporting inclusion, wellbeing, capability and personal development.

Alongside your salary of £76,000, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero contributes £20,520 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero offers a competitive mix of benefits including:
+ A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
+ Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an average employer contribution of 27%.
+ A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
+ An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
+ Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
+ A hybrid office/home based working model where staff will spend a norm of 40-60% of their time in the office (minimum of 40%) over a month with flex dependent on balancing business and individual need.