Ways will be studied on how tο gradually transform some communities and villages of Cyprus into green communities and villages, Cyprus' President Nikos Christodoulides, who is in Dubai for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP28), said on Saturday.

The President of the Republic, in statements, said this was “one of the most important” world events if one takes into account the issue that is being discussed at the Conference.

“It is not just a review of what we've done since 2015 and the Paris Summit, but we need to step up the pace - and I'm referring to our own country in particular - to implement our climate strategy”, he said.

He pointed to two main issues that came up, apart from everything that has been said at the Conference, but also from the bilateral meetings he had.

The first, he said, concerns the need for each country to act faster, while when it came to Cyprus, “we have some ideas, I had some contacts here, some visits, to see how we can gradually start turning some of our communities, of our villages into green communities, green villages. This is the first goal”.

The second, he pointed out, “is how to build a culture based on the fact that what we are experiencing today concerns the entire population”. Today, he added, it was mainly the new generation of Cyprus but also at the international level, who are dealing with the issue, because they are worried about their future. President Christodoulides said that this was an issue, however, that affects the entire population and that it was important to cultivate a culture on the need to address all these impacts, but also to move significantly faster to achieve the goals that have been set since 2015.

He also said that there were too many challenges, and that “everyone knows that our own country, and by extension our own region, faces particular and more challenges”.

Already, he added, “we are experiencing many of the effects of climate change”, noting that, it was within this context that the Cyprus Initiative was undertaken in 2019, for a regional consultation in relation to the implementation of all that needs to be done to address this challenge.