EU’s von der Leyen to skip COP29 climate summit

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will not attend this year’s United Nations climate change summit, known as COP29, a Commission spokesperson told Reuters on Tuesday.

Von der Leyen will skip the climate talks because of political developments in Brussels. There, EU lawmakers are vetting the members of her new European Commission, who will lead EU policymaking for the next five years.

“The Commission is in a transition phase and the president will therefore focus on her institutional duties,” the spokesperson said.

The new EU Commission is not expected to be in place before December. The COP29 summit will takes place from Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

European Council President Charles Michel will attend the summit, a spokesperson for Michel said. He and von der Leyen had been due to speak at COP29 alongside other world leaders, a U.N. agenda showed.

World leaders typically attend the start of U.N. climate summits, where in recent years some have used their slots to announce new CO2-cutting policies and funding commitments to address climate change.

Countries are represented throughout the two-week conference by teams of government negotiators, whose chief task is to broker deals among the nearly 200 countries present, on stronger action to avert severe temperature increases.

The EU will be represented during the COP29 negotiations by Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra and the bloc’s team of climate negotiators.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten and Ed Osmond)