Washington DC - Vice President Kamala Harris will attend the UN climate summit beginning in Dubai this week, the White House said Wednesday, after President Joe Biden faced pushback for not going.

Harris will join climate envoy John Kerry and a delegation of around two dozen other US officials at the meeting in the oil-rich Gulf emirate this Friday and Saturday, it said.

"The President asked Vice President Harris to attend the COP28 Leaders Summit on his behalf to showcase US global leadership on climate at home and abroad," the White House said in a statement.

She would also "help galvanize increased global ambition at this critical event," it said after Biden called United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.

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As recently as Monday, the White House insisted that its representation at the summit was "robust" despite Biden's snubbing the COP28 event.

Harris had not previously been scheduled to go to the summit either, in weekly guidance provided by the White House on Sunday.

Harris's Press Secretary, Kirsten Allen, said in a separate statement that the VP would "underscore the Biden-Harris administration's success in delivering on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad."

The White House has not said why Biden, who is big on fighting global warming, is skipping such a critical climate meeting. US officials have insisted he is closely involved in efforts to maintain and extend a truce between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Until Biden, it was not customary for the US president to attend each COP summit.

In 2021, Biden traveled to Glasgow to vow that the United States would again take a global leadership role on climate after his climate-skeptic predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. Biden again made a brief trip last year to COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Biden, who faces a likely rematch with Trump in the 2024 presidential election, has put a high priority on climate domestically and was visiting a wind turbine factory in Colorado on Wednesday.