President Nikos Christodoulides will be attending the UN Climate Summit (COP28) in Dubai on Thursday, Government Spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press briefing, Letymbiotis added that the president will refer to the effects of climate change in Cyprus, but also in the eastern Mediterranean, which is an area that will be greatly affected by climate change.

“President Christodoulides will refer to the steps needed to be taken for implementing the regional action plan to address climate change in the eastern Mediterranean within the Cyprus initiative on climate change presented on the sidelines of last year’s COP27 Summit,” he added.

The spokesman said that the COP28 Summit will focus on the implementation of existing initiatives and commitments to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

“During the climate negotiations at COP27 in Egypt, significant progress was made, with important initiatives and declarations aimed at intensifying global efforts to achieve the goals of Paris Agreement, and therefore at this year’s session it is considered of utmost importance to undertake a number of important issues that had been raised and to achieve balanced progress on all key agenda items,” he said.

Commenting on what the president will discuss, he said that the main points to be discussed at COP28 are acceleration of actions to deal with the climate crisis through cooperation between governments, private entities, and civil societies, “points which our country fully supports, in connection with the text of conclusions adopted by the European Council on October 17”.