Peter Zapfel joined the European Commission in 1998. Prior to his current assignment, he worked for DG Economic and Financial Affairs, DG Environment and DG Climate Action. He has represented the Commission as a delegation member in several UN climate negotiation sessions. He has been involved in the Commission’s work on emissions trading for some two decades. In DG Environment he has coordinated a DG-internal task force for the Commission’s assessment of national allocation plans for phase 2 of the EU Emission Trading System. He also served as assistant to the Deputy Director-General of DG Environment and as assistant to the Director-General in DG Climate Action. In DG CLIMA he was Head of Unit of the Economic Analysis and Strategy Unit, of the Emissions Trading System – Policy Development and Auctioning Unit, as well as the Governance & Effort Sharing Unit. Since early 2021 he works in DG Budget and supports as a senior expert several climate-related work-streams. He holds academic degrees from the University of Business and Economics in Vienna, Austria, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.