Addressing a United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece plans to hold a high-level conference in Athens in 2020 on the protection of cultural and natural heritage from climate change.
Echoing Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, he said the effects of climate change are altering cultural artifacts and that by the end of this year his New Democracy government will have in place a new national policy for energy that will include a ban on single-use plastic starting in 2021, the shutdown of lignite-fired power plants by 2028 and the increase in the share of renewable resources to 35 percent by 2030, the state-run Athens-Macedonia News Agency said.
He spoke of the July 23, 2018 wildfires that killed 102 people in areas northeast of the Greek capital and devastated the seaside village of Mati, saying that, “The destruction shook the Greek public deeply,” and that extreme climate conditions made the conflagration so deadly.
The government has put the management of climate change fallout high on its policy agenda, as Greece’s economic future is linked to its ability to protect its unique natural environment, Mitsotakis said, pointing to the rising sea level and and its impact on the country’s shores and islands, as well as the cost of extreme weather like storms, floods and heatwaves.
He also noted that climate change is an obstacle to economic development and prosperity, as it will adversely affect economic sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
He said Greece is fully committed to the Paris Agreement and the UN Agenda for 2030, with its 17 global Sustainable Development Goals and strongly supports the long-term strategic vision by 2050 of an EU economy that does not burden the climate.
Climate change could also disturb traditional ways of life in Greece, he said, adding that Athens will host a high-level conference in 2020 to “adopt a proposal for the protection of cultural and natural heritage from the repercussions of climate change.”
While he’s in New York he’s due to meet on the sidelines of the UN opening of the general assembly with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a bid to defuse growing tensions over Turkish provocations in the Aegean and its drilling for energy in Cypriot sovereign waters.
He’s also expected to meet with US President Donald Trump late in the afternoon on Sept. 24, ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Athens in October, and on Sept. 25 will go to Astoria to meet with the Diaspora.
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