Israel plans to send a 1,000-strong delegation to the United Nations climate conference in Dubai later this year, its largest ever, including representatives of more than 100 climate tech companies, the country’s foreign and environmental protection ministries announced Monday.
The Israeli delegation to the annual COP28 Climate Conference, which is scheduled to take place between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12 at Dubai’s Expo City complex, will be headed by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will attend the two-day leadership conference at the start of the event.
“The climate crisis is a global crisis which requires the enlistment of the entire international community,” said Foreign Minister Eli Cohen at a preparatory meeting held at his ministry in Jerusalem. “We intend to share the vast knowledge and ability of Israel in this field in order to find solutions to the crisis.”
Israel is home to around 700 climate-tech companies, and one in seven new Israeli startups deals with climate technology, said Cohen.
He noted that cooperation projects in the fields of energy, water and food security are already underway between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan.
Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman said, “The connection with countries signatory to the Abraham Accords is an amazing breakthrough of the prime minister, who dreamed and also accomplished, and we are adding pillars of cooperation and achievements in this international field which pertains to us all—environment and the climate.”
The Dubai conference “is an opportunity to further ties and to build the next step forward with our neighbors near and far,” she added.
Israel intends to hold about 70 events at the confab, nearly double the number held during last year’s climate conference in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Some 80,000 people from nearly 200 countries are expected to attend the global climate conference.
