Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ delivered an intervention at the UN high-level segment on the dispatch of timely warnings and the management of very high temperatures, part of the 29th Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Convention (COP29), on Wednesday.
In his intervention, the Greek premier focused on three issues: technology, governance, and building relationships of trust with local government.
Mitsotakis underlined that his government has invested in technology, and referred among others to emergency number 112, through which authorities can now send targeted messages to all cellphones in Greece, regardless of whether their owners are Greeks or tourists, to provide specific directions on what to do in case of natural catastrophies.
In terms of governance, the Greek premier spoke of the setting up of the Ministry of Climate Change and Civil Protection, “a very important organizational change, because that is where all necessary agencies came together: the military, police, the Fire Department, emergency ambulances (EKAV), forestry services, and the coast guard. We have codified all role jurisdictions. We wanted to ensure that lines of communication are open and that the hierarchy and distribution of duties is very specific.”
Building trust with local government included training people locally, developing a culture of evacuation in emergencies, and ensuring that citizens trust civil protection services, all highly important, Mitsotakis said. Greece has succeeded in this, adding that “sometimes it is better to evacuate people and err on the side of caution than lose lives because there was no warning about what they were about to face,” he said.
Parallel events
The premier also took part at parallel events on Wednesay, which included the inauguration of the Greek kiosk at COP29. During the inauguration, Mitsotakis said that Greece is a pioneer in energy transition, having reduced its polluting emissions by nearly 45% compared to 2005, adding that the turn to clean electricity production technologies brought new investment opportunities in Greece. The country is gradually becoming an energy exporter, he noted, while underlining the importance of an interconnectivity network with other European countries.
In the event “Vertical Corridor: Europe’s New Energy Lifeline”, Mitsotakis that Greece’s infrastructure for LNG and the vertical corridor contributed to security the wider region’s natural gas supply, adding that this corridor could also eventually supply Ukraine.
At the Bulgarian parallel event “High-Level segment of the President’s Administration and the Ministry of Energy”, Mitsotakis underlined the need for cooperation on regional level, as well as at the level of the European Council and the European Commission, to deal with the distortions observed in electricity markets of Southeastern Europe. In this respect, Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania could work together to support each other in meeting their energy demands by utilizing sources each country specializes in, he noted.
