US President Joe Biden will not attend the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference to be held at Expo City Dubai from the 30th of November until the 12th of December 2023.
Biden will skip the event as he balances the demands of the Israel-Hamas war and a presidential campaign.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Dubai to represent the American leader.
Although the White House released a list of Biden’s schedule for this week, it is still possible that he could make an appearance before the summit ends.
Chinese President Xi Jinping is also expected to miss the international gathering and will be sending delegates on his behalf.
Meanwhile, days before the summit, Chinese engineers completed the world’s largest single-site solar power plant in the UAE.
Known as the Al Dhafra Solar Photovoltaic Project, the two-gigawatt plant was built in a desert outside Abu Dhabi, capable of providing electricity to about 200,000 households.
The flagship project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative required four million panels to build and designed to reduce carbon emissions by 2.4 million tonnes every year.
COP28 which stands for Conference of the Parties is the 28th annual United Nations (UN) climate meeting where participating countries discuss and negotiate actions to address climate change.
UAE has announced the so-called Net Zero by 2050 strategic initiative – a national drive to achieve net-zero emissions by the year 2050 and will make it the first country in the Middle East and North Africa or MENA region to do so.
The Gulf nation also made an ambitious pledge to plant ten mangrove trees for every attendee which means an estimated 800,000 mangrove trees could be planted in Abu Dhabi after the event.
This year’s summit, set to begin on Thursday, is expected to convene more than 70,000 participants.
