Former oil executive Mukhtar Babayev opened this year’s COP29 negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan Monday, amid controversy over the petrostate’s promotion of its fossil fuel industry and criticism that the United Nations climate summit is merely a “greenwash conference.”
Babayev’s presidency agenda highlighted methane from waste and a sixfold increase in battery energy storage, but it notably sidestepped a fossil fuel transition, despite COP28’s landmark adoption of that goal last year, reported the Financial Times.
Once more, the UN is holding a global climate conference in a country that earns most of its export revenue from oil and gas. Likewise, it was the United Arab Emirates last year, and Egypt in 2022, with the next COP planned in Brazil—another fossil fuel economy.
Azerbaijan’s current and target policies for tackling climate change were rated “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker. The irony is visually apparent in capital Baku, built on the Caspian Sea with money from oil, and with oil rigs and refineries operating nearby, reports The New York Times. Multiple reports have also described the smell of oil in and around the conference venue.
How a Petrostate Became a COP Host
Azerbaijan was selected to host the COP after a lengthy process to choose a location in Eastern Europe. A host must be approved by all UN member states, with a single “no” vote enough to stall a decision. Russia exploited that process by blocking nominations of any possible host that opposed the invasion of Ukraine, leaving just two options—Azerbaijan and Armenia—each likely to vote against the other as they are at war. Russia broke the deadlock by negotiating a deal in which Azerbaijan released Armenian prisoners in exchange for Armenia allowing it to be the host, the Times recalls.
Climate activists have called for an overhaul of the process to prevent this from happening again, reports Inside Climate News.
Babayev, Azerbaijan’s ecology minister, is a former executive of the state oil company Socar. To his credit, he tried to reduce the company’s environmental damage, writes Inside Climate News. A Untied States ambassador to the country recounted that Babayev “said his mission was to ‘change the mentality’ of Azerbaijanis about their responsibilities to preserve the environment.”
Still, entering the second year in a row that the COP is overseen by a leader with close ties to the fossil fuel industry, Babayev’s appointment has elicited dismay from climate advocates who caution about industry capture of the COP process, writes the Independent. BBC News recently reported that one of Azerbaijan’s senior COP officials used their role to promote fossil fuel deals. He was caught on tape telling a man posing as a potential investor, “we have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed.”
Locking Up Journalists, Activists
Azerbaijan also received criticism for appointing no women among its 28-member climate committee early on—a move described as “regressive” and shocking.” The country responded by adding 12 women to what became a 41-meber committee, reports the Guardian.
Azerbaijan’s track record of human rights violations also undermines this year’s talks. The country locked up journalists and environmental activists in the months before the COP, reported Deutsche Welle.
Climate activists like Greta Thunberg are calling COP29 a ‘greenwash conference.’
Delegates are now settling in for a COP29 process with an acknowledged emphasis on securing funding from wealthy nations to support climate mitigation and adaptation for vulnerable countries, writes the Globe and Mail. But following decades of failure to adequately mobilize funds—despite commitments to have done so already—some countries are losing hope. Papua New Guinea is staying away to protest “empty promises and inaction,” saying the conference is “a total waste of time.”
The potential for this year’s climate talks to succeed is also in question now that climate engagement in two major Western countries is uncertain, reports PBS, pointing to the re-election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and the recent collapse of the German government.
But Azerbaijan has received some positive attention from climate advocates for its plan to establish an energy corridor under the Black Sea. The country would generate renewable energy from wind and solar farms along with adjacent Georgia, and the energy would be delivered across a 1,200-kilometre undersea cable to Hungary and Romania, says IEEE Spectrum.
