He Pope Francis has canceled trip to Dubai which was scheduled for next Friday, December 1, where I was going to participate in the Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on United Nations Climate Change (UN), better known as ‘COP’, which this year will celebrate its twenty-eighth meeting from November 30 to December 12.

The Pope planned to deliver a speech at COP28 and also maintain a thirty bilateral meetings at the Expo City of the Emirates: about twenty with as many heads of State and Government, who are present at COP28, and the rest, with representatives of associations that work in the climate crisisas well as other personalities and conference representatives Episcopalians and religious communities.

The pontiff will not attend this meeting because medical recommendation, as reported by the Press Office of the Holy See. However, they have stressed that their general clinical condition has improved with regarding the flu and inflammation of the respiratory tract.

“Pope Francis has accepted with great regret at the doctors’ request, so he trip is canceled“, they have indicated in the statement. Although they have declared that Pope Francis will remain at the disposal of the summit in the debates that will take place in the coming days, so “the modalities by which this can be carried out”.

On the other hand, next Sunday, December 3, the Pope Francisco I was going to attend the inauguration of the ‘Faith Pavilion’ (Pavilion of Religions) at the ‘Expo City’, which will be attended by the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, with whom he signed a document on brotherhood among peoples in February 2019 in Abu Dhabi.

First time that a pope went to the COP

This would have been the first time that a pontiff attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Although it is true that other religious leaders have attended it.