Azerbaijan is the host of the UN’s local weather convention, shining a highlight on the petrostate
The highlight is on Azerbaijan because the small petrostate within the South Caucasus hosts the U.N.’s largest local weather convention.
Diplomats from internationally will descend on the capital Baku for the annual local weather summit, often known as COP29, to debate methods to keep away from rising threats from climate change in a spot that was one of many birthplaces of the oil trade.
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. Almost 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 “reward of the gods.”
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.
Aliyev has stated it’s a “huge honor” for Azerbaijan to host the convention. He has additionally stated he needs his nation to make use of extra renewable vitality at house is in order that it may possibly export extra oil and gasoline overseas.
In Baku, the indicators of fossil gasoline dependancy are all over the place
In metallic 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 one in every of Baku’s spiritual 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 stated 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 vitality.
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 stated 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, not less than within the foreseeable future.”
Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s setting minister and former vp on the state vitality firm Socar, will function convention president of the talks. Babayev stated 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 vitality, particularly wind energy.
He stated he believes his nation’s COP summit should construct on last year’s agreement to transition away from fossil fuels and pave the way in which for international locations to return 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 vitality 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 international locations together with the US 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, stated Kate Watters, govt director at Crude Accountability, which displays environmental points within the Caspian Sea area.
Environmental monitoring in Azerbaijan is harmful, she stated, referencing a crackdown on civil society that has successfully snuffed out any actual opposition and seen individuals detained.
There is no efficient mechanism in Azerbaijan for locals to ring alarm bells about publicity to pollution from the oil and gasoline trade, Watters stated. She referenced well being points comparable to rashes and illness that residents could 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 stated he needs states to return 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 World Witness, a nonprofit group, discovered the quantity of gasoline flared at oil and gasoline services in Azerbaijan elevated by 10.5% since 2018.
Gasoline flaring is a significant supply of soot, carbon dioxide and methane emissions that contribute to international warming. It occurs when vitality firms burn off extra gasoline as an alternative of capturing it when it is launched whereas drilling for oil. It has 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 World Witness, instructed AP.
The Paris climate agreement requires international locations 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 insufficient” in September. It is anticipated the nation will submit an up to date plan this 12 months.
Amid conflict, 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 following decade and its pure sources have remodeled 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 means of 4 pipelines however most of that was later lower off.
That meant alternative for Azerbaijan, with the EU putting 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 now we have, the extra pure gasoline we are going to save,” Aliyev stated in March, noting the gasoline saved shall be “an extra contribution to the Southern Gasoline 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 could additionally spotlight Europe’s — and the world’s — persevering with dependence on them.
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 severe about internet hosting negotiations targeted on transferring the world towards inexperienced vitality.
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