By hosting COP29 from November 11 to 22, Azerbaijan is preparing to pass a sincerity test before an international jury made up of diplomats and environmental experts. Although it faces serious climate risks, the economy of this country of 10 million inhabitants has remained, since its independence in 1991, firmly based on two pillars: gas and oil from the Caspian Sea. Hydrocarbons alone represent 92% of the country’s exports.
This is not the only paradox that becomes evident as this event approaches. COP29 is presented to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, as an opportunity to improve the reputation of his country, which suffers from a serious image deficit. The Aliyev family has monopolized power for thirty-one years, imprisoning opponents and muzzling the media. The country is ranked 130th.my world ranking of The Economist Democracy Index and 164my World position among 180 in the Reporters Without Borders ranking. The forcible reconquest of its territorial integrity occurred at the cost of a bloodbath in 2020 and ended, in 2023, with the brutal exodus of 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Despite this great responsibility, it was the enemy Armenia that allowed Baku to organize COP29. At the end of a long diplomatic dispute behind the scenes of COP28 in Dubai, Yerevan lifted its veto on the candidacy of its enemy neighbor at the last minute and to everyone’s surprise. The Azerbaijani government has since presented the Baku summit as a “Peace COP” resulting from a “truce” unexpected with Yerevan.
Growing water deficit
However, environmental issues are among the many disputes between the two countries. For several decades, Baku has criticized Armenians for deliberately depriving its farmers of the important water resources of the highly mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh. Subsequently, much less sincerely, the Azerbaijani government used environmental protection to organize the blockade of the 100,000 Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh starting in December 2022. Posing as activists protesting against the environmental impact of a mine gold, agents of the The Azerbaijani government blocked the only road that connects the enclave with Armenia for almost ten months.
Ecological problems that cannot be attributed to Armenian enemies have not received the same responses from those in power. In March 2023, when 200 villagers from the central Saatli district protested against severe water shortages in the nearby Kura and Aras rivers, the police addressed the problem by firing rubber bullets into the crowd. Repression increased in the run-up to COP29 with a series of 30 arrests of opponents, journalists and trade unionists in recent months. To such an extent that there are no longer any independent environmental defense organizations active in Azerbaijan.
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