Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the Cop28 climate summit, sources close to her told Bloomberg just days after news emerged that President Joe Biden will skip the event.
Cop28 is the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or Conference of the Parties. It is the world’s largest climate summit and will be hosted in Dubai this year. Roughly 70,000 delegates from 200 nations are expected to attend.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to attend with the vice president, Reuters reported. No reason was given for Mr Biden’s decision not to attend.
However, John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special envoy for climate change, hinted to reporters the president’s attention is focused on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“They’ve got the war in the Middle East and a war in Ukraine, a bunch of things going on,” Mr Kerry previously told reporters when asked about Mr Biden’s Cop28 plans.
National leaders from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Japan, Brazil, Iran and Saudi Arabia are expected to deliver statements on their nations’ climate commitments.
Delegates from Ukraine are also expected to attend but it is yet unclear if President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself will be in Dubai.
