Afghanistan will participate in the COP29 that opens on Monday in Azerbaijan, the first since the return to power of the Taliban government in 2021, an Afghan diplomat official announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Saturday, November 9. “A delegation from the Afghan government will be in Baku”said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Afghanistan, the sixth most vulnerable country to climate change, is struggling to cope with flash floods, droughts and other natural disasters that scientists link to climate change. In May alone, more than 350 Afghans died in the floods. The Afghan Environment Agency (NEPA) has already been invited to international summits, but its officials have so far never obtained the necessary visas to participate, said Rouhollah Amin, head of climate change at NEPA.
The status of the Afghan delegation at COP 29, which will bring together 198 countries until at least November 22, was not immediately clear, but sources told AFP it could get the“observer”. After Baku, Kabul hopes to obtain visas from Riyadh to then attend the COP16 on desertification in Saudi Arabia in December, he continues, without being able to give more details about the delegation that Afghanistan could send there.
“Do not link climate change with politics”
Azerbaijan, a hydrocarbon exporting nation caught between Russia and Iran, reopened its embassy in Kabul in February, without officially recognizing the Taliban government. NEPA, for its part, continues to advocate that the breakdown of cooperation between Kabul and the world does not apply to environmental issues. “Climate change is a humanitarian issue”his number two, Zainulabedine Abid, recently reiterated to AFP. “We call on the international community not to link climate change issues with politics”he insisted.
Afghanistan, then controlled by the former Islamic Republic regime, supported by a Western coalition defeated by the Taliban three years ago, signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 that was supposed to limit global warming to 1.5°C. As such, Kabul is supposed to present its “nationally determined contributions” (CDN) to the rest of the signatories. This dossier began to be compiled before the Taliban government returned to power.
“In 2023, we decided that we must at least finalize this document, whether or not the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change accepts it”says Mr. Amin. “It is a national problem”insists, “We need to complete this document”.
Taliban authorities had long believed that they would be able to participate in COP28 held last year in the United Arab Emirates, a country that has already hosted several Taliban leaders. But, due to lack of invitation and visas, they had to pass their turn. The director general of NEPA, Mawlawi Matioul Haq Khalis – former Taliban negotiator and son of Younous Khalis, one of the figures of modern jihadism – recently denounced this forced absence, asking the international community to change the situation at COP29, according to the Bakhtar state agency.
Because, invariably, NEPA remembers the numbers: in 2019, Afghanistan was responsible for 0.08% of global greenhouse gas emissions. “It’s no big deal” and yet Afghanistan is one of the countries “Those most affected by climate change”laments Amin.
