European Commission spokesperson confirms President Ursula von der Leyen won't attend landmark climate summit in Azerbaijan, after UN sources told Euronews French and Russian presidents not going.
ADVERTISEMENT
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not attend the landmark UN climate summit in Baku later this month, according to a spokesperson for the executive.
Earlier, Euronews exclusively reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron will not attend either, citing sources close to the UN.
"The President will not be attending COP this year," the Commission spokesperson said, adding that since the Commission is in a transition phase, "the President will therefore focus on her institutional duties."
More than 100 heads of state and government have already confirmed their attendance in Azerbaijan, the UN sources said.
From Europe, leaders from Czechia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Spain have said they will attend.
Next week, world leaders gather in the Azeri capital Baku to review the climate goal set nine years ago in Paris, where almost 200 countries agreed they would “strive” towards limiting global average temperature rise to within 1.5°C of where it stood in the last half of the nineteenth century.
The COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan has been dubbed the "finance COP" – the central issue up for debate is who pays the trillions of dollars developing countries need to cope with increasingly extreme weather and avoid relying on fossil fuels as a motor for growth by jumping straight to clean energy.
China, to name the elephant in the room, does not contribute to the existing $100bn (€91.5bn) annual pot, which will be replaced with a new system from 2025.
This story is developing and will be updated.