Joe Biden will not attend the Cop28 climate talks which will begin in Dubai this week, amid the war in the Middle East and domestic political pressures.

Dozens of world leaders are expected to attend the climate summit, including Rishi Sunak, as well as the Pope and the King.

Mr Biden attended last year’s summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, and Cop26 in Glasgow, but will stay in the US this year, the New York Times reported.

Senior White House aides indicated to the newspaper that the war between Israel and Hamas was occupying the president’s agenda.

Mr Biden is also performing poorly in national polls compared to Donald Trump, a year out from the next US election.

Cop summit under increasing global attention

The president could risk a backlash from younger voters for whom climate change is a political priority.

But he may be banking on this demographic continuing to vote for him over Mr Trump, who took the US out of the Paris Agreement on limiting global temperatures.

Although there is a world leaders’ summit at the beginning of the two-week event, heads of state do not have a role to play in negotiations, which are led by teams of officials from each country.

The US president has not always attended in previous years, but the annual summit has come under increasing global attention as climate change has risen up the agenda.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, is also not expected to attend the climate change summit, but both the US and China will send their climate change envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zenhua, who have a close working relationship.

The two-week Cop28 summit in Dubai will see negotiations between 198 governments on agreements designed to keep global temperatures under 1.5C.

This will include discussions on the role of oil and gas over the next few decades, and funding for developing countries worst hit by climate change.