Climate Diplomacy

Being a petro-state is not a crime. But how Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel wealth exacerbates the human condition at home and abroad makes its hosting of COP29 an Orwellian tragedy. While 95% of Azerbaijan’s exports are oil and gas, the vast majority of the population is not benefiting from this wealth.

How did Azerbaijan ever become the COP29 host? The key to its success may well be how it has courted some of the world’s elites in ways that have put Azerbaijan in the spotlight in recent years. This long-term charm offensive, which serves to deflect criticism of Aliyev’s government and rebrand Azerbaijan as a vibrant destination, includes flying in celebrities and hosting international events like Formula 1. The practice is certainly not limited to Azerbaijan.

The country also recently launched a pandemic-era war of choice in 2020 in the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which ultimately pushed out the indigenous Armenian population within four years—in violation of International Court of Justice orders. The violent takeover followed a nine-month siege sugar-coated as an environmental protest. Azerbaijan then proudly declared Karabakh as the first region in Azerbaijan to become “net zero.” In March 2024, President Aliyev celebrated the predictable and preventable forced displacement with a traditional spring equinox bonfire, calling it a “final cleaning.”

Given Azerbaijan’s use of environmentalism to justify what leading human rights groups consider ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, COP29 for the regime is the final rubber stamp for its autocratic and hostile tendencies, including ongoing threats of invasion against Armenia. 

Plenty of people have argued that a petro-aggressor should have never hosted COP29—but what’s done is done.

Negotiators at this year’s United Nations climate summit, known as COP29, struck an agreement on November 24 to help developing countries adopt cleaner energy and cope with the effects of climate change. Under the deal, wealthy nations pledged to reach $300 billion per year in support by 2035, up from a current target of $100 billion.

Every year diplomats from nearly 200 nations gather to try to agree on plans to combat climate change. But regardless of the final details of the deal, the major fault lines will remain: Vulnerable nations still need huge amounts of money to cope with global warming, and wealthy nations have been slow to make those funds available.

The Paris Agreement puts the onus of generating climate finance solely on developed countries. As of now, they are under commitment to raise 100 billion dollars per year, a target that they have most not met. The Paris Agreement has a provision that says a new higher figure should be decided before 2025, a goal the countries assembled at COP29 tried to achieve but failed.

The small island countries rejected the proposal, saying it was an example of asking parties how low they could go in climate ambition. “This text will not be adequate to fully implement the Paris Agreement, to truly drive action to hold the 1.5º C limit. This is unacceptable,” the countries said in a statement.

Global warming means climate change and for the first time scientists have been able to calculate how much climate change impacts the severity of cyclones and storms which are now frequent across the world.

The fiasco at Baku is the latest in a long line of disappointments that are now raising a serious existential question about the COP process. The dismantling of the framework of action to save the planet that was agreed upon by more than 150 countries at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 is virtually complete.

[Contributed]

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 25, Dec 15 - 21, 2024