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| - The new head of the OECD is a little-known Australian politician who takes on his new role dogged by a patchy climate record that stirred up controversy ahead of his appointment. Australia's longest-serving finance minister, 50-year-old Mathias Cormann was appointed head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on Friday. He is the first person from Asia-Pacific to take the helm of the Paris-based, 37-nation organisation, and takes the role in the middle of one of the worst global recessions on record. But it is his climate record that grabbed headlines ahead of his appointment. More than two dozen environmental groups said Cormann shouldn't have been considered for the top OECD job, citing former statements they said opposed climate change. But Cormann defended his climate record, saying that "action on climate change to be effective, requires an ambitious, globally coordinated approach". A powerbroker in the ruling centre-right Liberal party and Australia's longest-serving finance minister, Cormann quit parliament late last year to seek the top job. He emerged as a surprise frontrunner, and beat out fellow top contender, Sweden's Cecilia Malmstrom, a former EU trade commissioner. Another eight candidates were whittled out of contention. The OECD works to boost economic growth and world trade, and its 37 member nations account for 60 percent of global economic output. It has never been helmed by a citizen of an Asia-Pacific country. Cormann said climate change was among the group's key challenges when he announced his candidacy last year, along with education, skills and "narrowing differences on taxation policy". He helped campaign against a carbon pricing system designed to curb emissions in Australia's carbon-intensive economy, and was a senior member of the government that repealed the scheme in 2014. Cormann has focused his pitch for the role on the perspective he would bring to the OECD after having "shared my life in equal measure between Europe and the Asia-Pacific". Born in the Belgian town of Eupen, Cormann speaks German, French and Flemish along with English. He studied law in Belgium before migrating to Australia in the 1990s and working his way up the ranks of the Liberal party. Despite spending more than a decade in parliament -- and serving as finance minister for a record seven years -- he is not well-known to the Australian public. But he was an influential party operator, and was instrumental in the elevation of current Prime Minister Scott Morrison by helping oust the country's previous leader. Morrison told the National Press Club in early February he nominated Cormann in part because "cooperation between like-minded liberal democracies... has never been more important than it is today". "As the world grapples with the recovery from Covid-19, this grouping... has a fundamental role to play in keeping markets open," he added. Cormann's campaign attracted controversy in Australia when it emerged he was using an air force jet to criss-cross Europe and make his case to other leaders. Critics slammed the costly exercise as unwarranted when tens of thousands of Australians were stranded overseas because of a government coronavirus policy capping international arrivals. Australia's government said the move was necessary because commercial air travel would have put Cormann at risk of contracting Covid-19. hr/dm/gle/jv/lth
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