A former science journalist, Cédric Philibert, born in 1954, started his career in the public sector as a counsellor to the French environment minister in 1988.

He published two books in 1990 on climate change and on renewable energies. In 1992 he was appointed advisor to the General Director of the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Efficiency (ADEME). In 1998 he joined the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and, in early 2000, the International Energy Agency (IEA). He published in 2002, in collaboration with Jonathan Pershing, an IEA book, "Beyond Kyoto - Energy Dynamics and Climate Stabilisation".
Principal administrator at the Energy and Environment Division, he is currently in charge of the "evolution of mitigation commitments".

Qualified in political sciences, he studied economics and published numerous papers in peer-reviewed and other journals. Married, he has three children.