A spokesperson for the Fee, Tim McPhie, mentioned this was why she could not get away. “The Fee is in a transition part and the President will due to this fact give attention to her institutional duties.”
Von der Leyen joins France’s Emmanuel Macron, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, the US’ Joe Biden, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as leaders of main polluting nations who’ve styled themselves as world local weather leaders and seem like skipping this yr’s version of the annual talks.
A few of the different confirmed audio system, akin to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, come from the suitable wing of politics, which is historically extra skeptical of local weather motion.
Von der Leyen has been at each U.N. local weather talks since she attended COP25 in Madrid on her first day as chief of the EU’s govt department in 2019.
COP29 is billed as a extra minor assembly than others which have preceded it. Attendance is down on all ranges.
Nevertheless if the U.S. election delivers a second Donald Trump presidency on Tuesday, local weather advocates hope the talks would possibly ship a message of solidarity.
The European Council didn’t instantly reply to questions relating to the attendance of its president, Charles Michel.