COP29: Azerbaijan’s economy is supported by oil – 01/15/2024 – Environment

COP28, the 2023 edition of the UN climate summit, was marked by controversy. The event was held in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, one of the largest oil producers in the world. More than that, it was chaired by the head of the country’s state-owned oil giant.

Hence the feeling of something already seen with the announcement that COP29 will take place in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan — where the oil and natural gas industry generates almost half of GDP and corresponds to more than 90% of exports.

Furthermore, the summit will be chaired by Mukhtar Babayev, who worked for 26 years at the state oil company Socar. The controversy is repeated.

The issue, for some environmentalists, is that oil production is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions, causing the climate crisis, which is the problem that the UN summit aims to resolve. Letting the oil industry preside over conversations creates discomfort.

Despite these coincidences, the context of Azerbaijan is different from that of the Emirates, including because oil extraction there is much older. In the 19th century there were wells in what is now Azerbaijan, while in the Emirates the discovery of commercial reserves only came in the 1950s.

Without a tradition of actively participating in climate negotiations, Azerbaijan is among the ten most oil-dependent economies. Dependence is even greater than that of the United Arab Emirates, according to an analysis by the Carbon Tracker initiative.

Azerbaijan is also a member of OPEC+, an expanded group of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to which Brazil recently joined.

Located in the South Caucasus, the country has a majority of Muslim population. This territory, once part of a Persian empire, was part of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991, a period in which it played a central role in supplying Moscow with energy.

In addition to the environmental aspect, another issue that should generate debate this year is the country’s authoritarian profile — led for 20 years by Ilham Aliyev, who replaced his own father. According to the organization Human Rights Watch, the government kept at least 20 political dissidents in prison in 2022.

There is also control of the press. In this sense, the coincidence is with the host of the 2022 climate summit, Egypt, another authoritarian country.

The COP leadership

In comparison with the Dubai COP, there is also an important difference regarding the figure of the summit president. COP28 was chaired by Sultan al-Jaber, who at the same time headed Adnoc, the state oil company. There were reports in the press that the firm planned to use the event to negotiate fossil fuel contracts.

Jaber also serves as the UAE’s minister of industry and technology, as well as its climate envoy.

Babayev is now Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan. The fact that he worked for more than two decades at Socar remains uncomfortable — but there he worked for a short time as vice president for ecological matters, which now serves as his credentials.

According to press reports, Babayev spent three years at Socar working to remediate soils contaminated by more than a century of oil extraction, in addition to participating in other climate conferences.

The expectation, based on statements made in the past, is that Babayev will act on two fronts. He would continue to insist on mitigating and correcting the damage caused by fuel exploitation, but without ceasing to develop the industry which, after all, is the basis of the economy.

However, for now, these are conjectures. In a country without press freedom, there is still little information about Babayev and his record.

Diplomatic chess

Heard by the reporter in November on the occasion of the summit in Dubai, Matthew Paterson, an expert in climate policy at the University of Manchester, said he understood the criticisms from environmentalists regarding the choice of a country linked to oil and a president linked to the state oil company — the This is also the case this year.

He also stated, however, that the decision process is complex and depends on political and logistical issues.

The UN does not interfere in the appointment of the president of the summits and there is a rotation between the regions of the world to define who will host the climate COPs. This year, it’s Eastern Europe’s turn.

Generally, host countries are confirmed two years in advance, allowing them to prepare to pay for the event and conduct the work, but the suspense over the host of COP29 lasted until the end of last year, due to conflicts in the region of Eastern Europe.

Russia had stated that it would veto the candidacy of any European Union country, in response to the bloc’s sanctions imposed over the war against Ukraine.

Azerbaijan, which is not part of the bloc, was also experiencing a context of war against Armenia — but the two countries began to reach an understanding in December, allowing Baku to be approved as the headquarters.

In any case, Brazil, which is expected to host COP30 in Belém (PA), is another member of the list of the largest oil producers in the world. Therefore, it is likely that the debate about the weight of fossil fuel interests in negotiations will be repeated in 2025.

To remove the oil industry from the center of the climate conversation, it would be necessary to rethink the format of the summit, something that activists are already defending.