Mitsotakis at COP28: Despite climate devastation, a ‘new Greece is emerging’
Despite the “climate devastation” experienced by the country in recent times, “a new Greece is emerging,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has told the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) in Dubai.
“We have cut our coal use by over 80 percent. We are growing our economy at a much faster pace than the European average, while we are reducing emissions. In total our emissions are down 43 percent from 2005 as we turn increasingly to renewable energy,” he said.
Greece had “one of the best performances of any European country” in terms of renewable energy, he added.
“Last year our penetration of wind and solar was the 7th highest in the world and our installed capacity was the fifth highest on a per capita basis,” the prime minister said, adding that wind and solar power now generate half of the country’s electricity needs.
Mitsotakis said that in Greece homes are being renovated in an unprecedented way and a carbon storage and capture chain is being built for heavy industry.
Greek islands are “laboratories for cutting-edge sustainability,” while the country “takes very seriously” the decarbonization of shipping.
He said the planned increase in the capacity of offshore wind power generation systems in the Aegean “will literally redraw the energy map of the region.”
More resources were needed for climate change resilience, he noted.
“As we build the future, we cannot forget the past. We must ensure a just transition for the communities that got us here and have a responsibility to our shared common heritage, to protect endangered monuments from the wrath of climate change.
“Our challenges is immense, but we cannot minimize the progress that we have made.”
