Individuals stroll by an indication for COP29, the United Nations Local weather Change Convention, in Baku, Azerbaijan, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Related Press
The highlight is on Azerbaijan because the small petrostate within the South Caucasus hosts the U.N.’s greatest local weather convention.
Diplomats from internationally will descend on the capital Baku for the annual local weather summit, referred to as COP29, to debate learn how to keep away from growing threats from local weather change in a spot that was one of many birthplaces of the oil trade.
It was in Baku the place the world’s first oil fields had been developed in 1846 and the place Azerbaijan led the world in oil manufacturing in 1899.
READ: Fuel booming for UN COP29 host Azerbaijan
Sandwiched between Iran to the south and Russia to the north, Azerbaijan is on the Caspian Sea and was a part of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991. Practically all of Azerbaijan’s exports are oil and gasoline, two of the world’s main sources of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. President Ilham Aliyev described them in April as a “present of the gods.”
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Aliyev is Azerbaijan’s authoritarian chief. He’s the son of the previous president and has been in energy for greater than 20 years, overseeing a crackdown on freedom of speech and civil society. The Related Press was not granted permission by Azerbaijan’s authorities to report within the nation forward of the convention.
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Aliyev has mentioned it’s a “huge honor” for Azerbaijan to host the convention. He has additionally mentioned he needs his nation to make use of extra renewable power at house is in order that it may export extra oil and gasoline overseas.
In Baku, the indicators of fossil gasoline habit are in all places
In steel cages subsequent to Azerbaijan’s Aquatic Palace sporting venue are pumpjacks — an indication says they extract simply over 2 tons of oil a day. Others pump away elsewhere, sucking up oil in view of considered one of Baku’s non secular and vacationer websites, the Bibi Heybat mosque that was rebuilt within the Nineteen Nineties after it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks virtually 80 years in the past.
Aliyev mentioned he considers it “an indication of respect” from the worldwide neighborhood that Azerbaijan is internet hosting COP and a recognition of what Azerbaijan is doing round inexperienced power.
READ: PH pushes catastrophe funds in upcoming COP29 meet
A few of these plans contain creating hydropower, photo voltaic and wind initiatives in Karabakh, a area populated by ethnic Armenians who fled to Armenia after a lightning army offensive by Azerbaijan in September 2023.
Aliyev mentioned in a speech in March that his nation is within the “lively section of inexperienced transition” however added that “nobody can ignore the truth that with out fossil gasoline, the world can’t develop, at the very least within the foreseeable future.”
Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s atmosphere minister and former vp on the state power firm Socar, will function convention president of the talks. Babayev mentioned in April he needs to point out how this “oil and gasoline nation of the previous” can present the world a inexperienced path with its efforts to ramp up renewable power, particularly wind energy.
He mentioned he believes his nation’s COP summit should construct on final 12 months’s settlement to transition away from fossil fuels and pave the way in which for nations to come back collectively in 2025 on beefed-up and financed plans to clamp down on heat-trapping gases.
However loads of individuals doubt these commitments.
A number of organizations say Azerbaijan’s dedication to the inexperienced power transition quantities to greenwashing – giving the impression that the nation is doing greater than it’s to fight local weather change.
Claims of greenwashing and civil society crackdowns abound
Whereas many nations together with america and the United Arab Emirates — final 12 months’s host — grapple with the challenges of transitioning away from fossil fuels, Azerbaijan has traditionally not been proactive in that regard, mentioned Kate Watters, govt director at Crude Accountability, which displays environmental points within the Caspian Sea area.
Environmental monitoring in Azerbaijan is harmful, she mentioned, referencing a crackdown on civil society that has successfully snuffed out any actual opposition and seen individuals detained.
There’s no efficient mechanism in Azerbaijan for locals to ring alarm bells about publicity to pollution from the oil and gasoline trade, Watters mentioned. She referenced well being points corresponding to rashes and illness that residents might expertise dwelling close to the Sangachal oil and gasoline terminal simply outdoors Baku however indicated that their considerations should not heard.
Azerbaijani authorities officers didn’t reply to quite a few requests from The Related Press for remark.
Babayev has pointed to Azerbaijan experiencing higher-than-normal temperatures and mentioned he needs states to come back collectively to enhance plans to cease the emission of gases that contribute to international warming. However his nation has been criticized for failing to clamp down on precisely that.
Evaluation from International Witness, a nonprofit group, discovered the quantity of gasoline flared at oil and gasoline amenities in Azerbaijan elevated by 10.5% since 2018.
Fuel flaring is a significant supply of soot, carbon dioxide and methane emissions that contribute to international warming. It occurs when power corporations burn off extra gasoline as a substitute of capturing it when it’s launched whereas drilling for oil. It’s been blamed by human rights teams and investigative journalists for a few of Azerbaijanis’ well being points, together with across the Sangachal terminal.
“We’re heading right into a COP the place even the host isn’t bothering to do the essential features of local weather diplomacy,” Louis Wilson, head of fossil fuels investigations at International Witness, informed AP.
The Paris local weather settlement requires nations to submit plans to fight local weather change, with Azerbaijan’s newest replace coming in 2023. A bunch of local weather scientists rated it “critically inadequate” in September. It’s anticipated the nation will submit an up to date plan this 12 months.
Amid battle, Europe turns to Azerbaijan for gasoline
Azerbaijan owns one of many largest gasoline fields on the earth, Shah Deniz, and BP introduced in April the beginning of oil manufacturing from a brand new offshore platform additionally within the Caspian Sea.
Baku is planning to hike its fossil gasoline manufacturing over the subsequent decade and its pure assets have reworked it right into a geopolitical participant.
Earlier than Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Moscow provided a few of 40% of Europe’s pure gasoline by 4 pipelines however most of that was later minimize off.
That meant alternative for Azerbaijan, with the EU hanging a deal later that 12 months to double its imports of Azeri gasoline to twenty billion cubic meters a 12 months by 2027. However there are questions as as to if Azerbaijan can meet that demand and disagreements over the phrases of the deal.
“The extra renewable sources we now have, the extra pure gasoline we’ll save,” Aliyev mentioned in March, noting the gasoline saved might be “a further contribution to the Southern Fuel Hall,” which takes gasoline from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
Azerbaijani officers have argued that it’s unfair to criticize Baku for producing extra fossil fuels when there’s a demand for them throughout Europe as nationwide governments endeavor to maintain gasoline costs low for residents.
Azerbaijan’s internet hosting of COP will flip the highlight on the nation which makes most of its cash from promoting fossil fuels however it might additionally spotlight Europe’s — and the world’s — persevering with dependence on them.
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For a lot of local weather specialists, the query for Azerbaijan is whether or not the nation that noticed the beginnings of the fossil gasoline trade is critical about internet hosting negotiations centered on transferring the world towards inexperienced power.
