Paolo Caridi

Head of Unit, Communication
Directorate General for Climate Action of the European Commission

Paolo Caridi is the Head of the Unit in charge of Communication and Civil Society Relations in the Directorate General for Climate Action of the European Commission since June 2022.

He has been working previously on Climate Change issues from 2009 to 2013, when he was in charge of UNFCCC negotiations, notably coordinating the International Negotiation Task Force, handling relations with the Council and the Parliament, and managing relations with Japan and South Korea. He has also been responsible for relations with China and India in 2021-2022.

During his almost 30-year career in the European Commission, he has been in charge of national accounts in Eurostat, served as a case handler in the Anti-Dumping service, overseen bilateral relations with Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries, and worked as a negotiator in the Services and Investment unit of DG TRADE.

Paolo has considerable diplomatic experience, having worked in EU Delegations around the world. He was the Head of the Trade Sections in South Korea and Mexico from 2013 to 2021 and First Secretary in the Trade Section of the EU Delegation to Japan from 2004 to 2008.

He holds a post-graduate degree in Political Sciences and International Relations from the Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) in Paris and a Master’s degree in Economics and Trade from the University of Genoa, Italy.

He also graduated from the EU Executive Training Program, Tokyo, which included a twelve-month intensive Japanese language course and seminars on the Japanese business environment, followed by six months of internships at the Japanese Ministry of Economy and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the largest food trading company dealing with Italian products.

He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian and has an intermediate understanding of Japanese.