Leaders of the global climate community will arrive in Baku today, November 11, for the opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), The Wall Street Journal reports. The representative Russian delegation was headed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
It is a two-week summit during which delegates discuss how to address climate change. This year the event received the epithet “financial COP”. The focus will be on finding funds to finance the transition away from fossil fuels and efforts to curb global warming.
conference president Mukhtar Babaev He worked for many years at the state oil company SOCAR. However, summit organizers maintain that Azerbaijan’s ties to fossil fuels “should not cause anyone concern.”
“Our focus and starting point is that we are all included in this work, ready to contribute to global climate action. This became the basis of our proposal to host COP29.” — explained the vice president of the conference Samir Bezhanov.
Meanwhile, critics point out that the country plans to increase natural gas exports, including to Europe. According to Bezhanov, additional investments in this sector are justified given the current Russian special military operation in Ukraine and the growing demand from European consumers.
“It is obvious that Azerbaijan’s plans to further increase fossil fuel production are incompatible with the obligations assumed by Baku. The country committed to setting an example, together with its Troika colleagues (UAE and Brazil), by trying to comply with its NDC [определяемый на национальном уровне вклад] trajectory at 1.5 degrees Celsius”, – grades Shadi Khalilsenior global policy strategist at clean energy research and outreach group Oil Change International.
According to the expert, until 2035 Azerbaijan, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates plan to increase oil and gas production by 32%.
“It is difficult to classify this initiative as actions by countries that deserve trust in the fight against climate change,” – Khalil added.
The US delegation is expected to be led by President Biden’s senior adviser on international climate policy. John Podesta. However, the president-elect donald trump He stated that he intends to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement (as he already did in his first presidential term).
Most big banks, including JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, decided not to send their top managers to the conference, although the summit is dedicated to financing the transition to alternative energy. However, the oil and gas industry is expected to be widely represented in Baku.
Therefore, the CEO of Exxon Mobil should be present at the conference. British oil giant BP, whose fate has been closely intertwined with that of Azerbaijan since the collapse of the USSR, will not be left out.
By hosting the summit, Azerbaijani authorities seek to reinforce their international authority and give legitimacy to the government, according to human rights groups. In 2012, Baku hosted the Eurovision Song Contest and now regularly hosts stages of Formula 1 races.
The current president, Ilham Aliyev, has been in power in “this nominally democratic country” since 2003, when he succeeded his father, after whom the main airport in the country’s capital is named.
Over the past year, according to statistics from human rights organizations, more than a dozen journalists have been arrested in the country. The European Parliament condemned the treatment of activists and opposition leaders by the country’s authorities.
In 2023, Azerbaijan sent troops to Nagorno-Karabakh, a region bordering Armenia and the subject of a territorial dispute between the two countries.
The Azerbaijani army expelled about one hundred thousand ethnic Armenians from this territory; Dozens of people were taken prisoner. BP plans to implement a solar energy project in the disputed region.
“Azerbaijan is using the climate conference to whitewash its reputation internationally, thanks to which, in turn, Baku hopes to continue producing oil and gas for decades, acting as a destroyer of international efforts,” — the lead researcher of the Global Witness project is convinced Patrick Gailey.
Despite their close ties to fossil fuels and human rights issues, Azerbaijanis try to praise their country’s ecological qualities. By 2030, Baku aims to obtain 30% of its electricity from renewable sources by building wind and solar parks.
***
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan, Having received an invitation to the 29th Climate Summit (COP-29) in Baku, the first two days of the event will be in Sweden on a working visit.
In turn, the head of the country’s Prime Minister’s office. Arayik Harutyunyan He said Yerevan decided to participate in the conference to make significant progress in negotiations on a peace treaty.
And this is what the author of the Telegram channel “Comrade General” thinks about Yerevan’s participation in the Baku summit.
AN ACT OF BETRAYAL AND IMITATION OF INTEGRITY
Today in Baku, despite an attempt at international obstruction and rather loud demands to release captured Armenians, the United Nations Framework Conference (COP29) opens.
Let me remind you that its celebration in Azerbaijan was initiated, agreed upon and approved by the government of Armenia in exchange for the release of a certain number of prisoners. But not all.
This exchange (international status versus freedom for Armenians) initially opened certain opportunities for Yerevan. It is obvious that Nikol Pashinian and I didn’t think to take advantage of these opportunities.
Let us draw key conclusions from the very fact of the unimpeded opening of COP29 in Baku:
- President Ilham Aliyevwhich became the main “receiver-controller” of the draft peace agreement with Armenia, was expected to postpone its signing, despite the fact that representatives of the administration joe biden They spoke directly about the need to conclude an agreement before COP29. Trump’s victory made such a gift to the Democratic Party impossible. It is obvious that the Turks are now looking for options to distance the peace process from the United States or “sell it” to Donald Trump.
- Neither group or individual statements, nor decisions of national parliaments, nor media campaigns, nor protests by monsters like Greta Thunberg, They have no importance in the international arena unless they are pressured by national governments or communities of states. In other words, the fate of COP29 would have been different if, instead of parliamentary resolutions, government decisions on the introduction of sanctions against Azerbaijan had been published. Or if 2 or 3 members of the UN Security Council spoke out against holding COP29 in Baku. COP29 participants demanded an imitation of adherence to the principles just to justify the trip to Baku to their own voters; no one really cared about the fate of the Armenians.
- Attempts by various foreign figures and government institutions to link the release of Baku prisoners with the celebration of SOP29 seemed far-fetched in the context of the silence of the Armenian government and the subsequent discussions of its representatives about the possibility of traveling to Baku. The entire behavior of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the government of Armenia towards the prisoners in Baku is an endless chain of acts of betrayal. If Armenia participates in COP 29, it will be the height of cynicism and contempt for its own people.
