In the last hours it emerged that the national director of Climate Change in the Ministry of Environment, natalie couplehas been publicly presented with a title that doesn’t exist because the institution that supposedly would have granted it, does not really offer degrees.
As revealed on Tuesday by the newspaper The country, Pareja took over as a meteorology technician with a degree from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). However, this body only coordinates and governs the climate services of the Member States of the United Nations Organization (UN) without competence beyond that. It is not an academic entity that dictates courses equivalent to undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate courses.
In fact, on the official website of the Ministry of the Environment, on the website of the national government, Natalie Pareja is mentioned with this supposed academic title. In her personal file, last updated on March 10, 2021, that she is by profession “Meteorological Technician by the World Meteorological Organization”.
Natalie Pareja is a member of Cabildo Abierto and has been since the Ministry of Housing, Territorial Planning and Environment existed, which later became two separate portfolios: Housing and Environment.
The hierarch was consulted by the aforementioned outlet and acknowledged that, indeed, said title does not exist, but she shook off responsibility, stating that it was an error by the ministry’s communication team.
The academic career and titles without homologation
The lobbying leader graduated from the School of Meteorology of Uruguay, an entity that disappeared in 2016, and which awarded titles to a large number of professionals in the sector. When she was consulted, she claimed to have completed three years of technical training and also completed two orientations in synoptics (making forecasts) and climatology.
The problem is that this technique has not been recognized by the Ministry of Public Education (MEC). Regarding why the non-existent title appears written on the official website of the Ministry of Housing, he replied: “Honestly, I don’t know. I understand that it is a degree recognized by the institution, but it is not issued by it at all. My degree is issued by the School of Meteorology of Uruguay, like most of the people who work at Inumet”.
The ghost of the Adrián Peña case
In January of this year, a case took place in which Adrián Peña, then Minister of the Environment, had to resign after admitting that he had held a university degree that, in reality, he did not have.
The leader of the Ciudadanos del PC sector admitted that he had lied “for some time” about having a degree in Business Administration. In fact, since at least 2015 he would have presented himself as such and there are official government documents in which he is listed as “Licenciado Adrián Peña”.
The controversy broke out when it was learned -first- that the title was obtained only in 2022, but the last thing that was known this weekend is that from the Catholic University of Uruguay they remarked that he still lacks a subject to get the cardboard that titled as a graduate.
