<a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/11/23/sheikh-mansour-receives-uae-astronauts-sultan-al-neyadi-and-hazza-al-mansouri/" target="_blank">Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed</a>, Vice President and Deputy Prime Minister, toured <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/2023/11/21/expo-city-dubai-to-be-powered-entirely-by-renewable-energy/" target="_blank">Expo City Dubai </a>to inspect final preparations ahead of next week's <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/tags/cop28/" target="_blank">Cop28</a> conference in Dubai. During the visit, Sheikh Mansour inspected the sites of the pavilions and halls that will host negotiation meetings. He was accompanied by <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/cop28/2023/10/20/dr-sultan-al-jaber-calls-for-world-to-protect-arctic-from-climate-change/" target="_blank">Dr Sultan Al Jaber</a>, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Cop28 President-designate, as well as members of the Cop28 higher committee. Sheikh Mansour was also briefed by the Cop28 team on the most prominent events at the conference, which is expected to be attended by more than 160 heads of state and government. The Cop28 climate conference begins in Dubai next week, and runs from November 30 to December 12. Tens of thousands of world leaders, ministers, negotiators, eco activists and captains of industry will be converging on the emirate for two weeks of crunch talks aimed at developing an urgent action plan to address the climate crisis. The first three days of the summit will be open only to delegates. This will include a major leader's summit on December 1 and 2 that will set the tone for the days to come. The event is expected to welcome 85,000 participants and more than 5,000 media representatives.