J. Waller-Hunter, UN environment of?cial

BERLIN -- Joke Waller-Hunter, a senior UN environment official who helped implement the Kyoto accord on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, died Friday, the world body said. She was 58.

A statement from the UN body based in Bonn, Germany, did not give a cause of death.

Ms. Waller-Hunter, a Dutch national, was executive secretary of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC. She had worked passionately for the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, according to the statement.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called her a ''firm believer in the principles of sustainable development."

Before joining UNFCCC in 2002, Ms. Waller-Hunter worked for four years as director of the environment directorate of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris. From 1994 to 1998, she was the United Nations' first director for sustainable development.