NEW YORK—Havas PR has launched a new global climate change communications group, the Havas Worldwide climate practice. The team brings together experts in key geopolitical centers around the world, reporting into CEO Marian Salzman and led by Pete Bowyer, who was the spokesman to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on climate justice issues.

The new practice will provide strategic consulting, communications advice and campaign mobilization to clients on one of the most urgent issues facing our generation. It will have three regional hubs: John Casey, global director for the Havas–United Nations Foundation climate change team, will run the Americas hub; James Wright, who leads Havas’ engagement with WWF in Australia, will lead the APAC hub; Bowyer will operate the London office.

“There is real momentum developing across the world as a new global agreement on climate change approaches at the UN Paris Conference next year,” says Bowyer. “It’s a top priority of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the IMF and the World Bank, and world leaders are beginning to face up to the greatest global challenge of our age. But business and civil society have key roles to play as well.”

The team’s experience on climate change includes work with some of the world’s most prominent institutions, corporations and spokespeople, including launching Earth Hour with WWF; creating Kofi Annan’s “Tck Tck Tck: Time for Climate Justice” campaign in the run-up to the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen; working together with the United Nations Foundation to develop a global communications network in more than a dozen countries to communicate the science behind climate change; and launching Ban Ki-moon’s Big Data Climate Challenge as part of the preparations for the UN Secretary-General’s September Climate Summit.