Chris­ta Cas­tro Vare­la was born in Tegu­ci­gal­pa, Hon­du­ras.

She was the first woman to be appoin­ted Exe­cu­ti­ve Secre­ta­ry of the Cen­tral Ame­ri­can Com­mis­si­on for Envi­ron­ment and Deve­lo­p­ment of the Cen­tral Ame­ri­can Inte­gra­ti­on Sys­tem (CCAD-SICA). The­re, she led the par­ti­ci­pa­to­ry pro­cess of buil­ding the Regio­nal Envi­ron­men­tal Stra­tegy (ERAM) as the region’s work pro­gram to achie­ve the SDGs, and ensu­red col­la­bo­ra­ti­on and finan­cial resour­ces for its imple­men­ta­ti­on. It also streng­the­ned insti­tu­tio­nal capa­ci­ty and rela­ti­onships bet­ween the Secre­ta­ri­at and key stake­hol­ders for the deve­lo­p­ment of regio­nal sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment pro­jects.

As Hon­du­ras’ first Spe­cial Envoy on Cli­ma­te Chan­ge, she was respon­si­ble for UNFCCC pro­ces­ses and the deve­lo­p­ment of stra­te­gic initia­ti­ves to address cli­ma­te chan­ge: the Hon­du­ras Water, Forest and Soil Mas­ter Plan and the first green invest­ment by the Inter-Ame­ri­can Deve­lo­p­ment Bank (IDB) and the Green Cli­ma­te Fund (GCF) of $79 mil­li­on to sup­port forest and waters­hed res­to­ra­ti­on with the acti­ve par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on of local com­mu­ni­ties.

During her time as Hon­du­ras’ first ambassa­dor to Ger­ma­ny, she pro­mo­ted dia­lo­gue and resour­ce mobi­liza­ti­on for cli­ma­te action and sus­tainable deve­lo­p­ment in Cen­tral Ame­ri­ca.

Sin­ce August 2022, she has been working with TUM Inter­na­tio­nal GmbH as an exter­nal con­sul­tant for sus­taina­bi­li­ty and inno­va­ti­on in Latin Ame­ri­ca.

Chris­ta holds a Master’s degree in Envi­ron­men­tal and Sani­ta­ry Engi­nee­ring from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Can­tab­ria, Spain. She ser­ved as a pro­fes­sor of eco­lo­gy at the Cen­tral Ame­ri­can Tech­no­lo­gi­cal Uni­ver­si­ty (UNITEC). She speaks Spa­nish (her nati­ve lan­guage), flu­ent French and Eng­lish and has a good know­ledge of Ger­man.