Azerbaijan, a serious oil and fuel producer accused of great human rights abuses, is “perfectly suited” to host a crucial world local weather summit, in response to its man in cost.
Sandwiched between Russia and Iran, bridging Europe and Asia, Azerbaijan is “strategically located” to bridge variations between areas, he stated, as nations assemble with wildly completely different ambitions, grudges and fears for the talks.
However there’s another excuse, stated Mr Babayev: its function as a serious oil and fuel producer.
Baku is the “world’s first oil town”, house to the world’s first industrial oil properly from 1847. Relics and tributes to its supply of wealth adorn the town, from the outdated oil pumpjacks to its three flame-shaped skyscrapers.
“As a hydrocarbon producer that is investing heavily in the switch to renewable energy, we are well-attuned to the needs of the energy transition,” Mr Babayev, who declined an interview, stated in a written Q&A.
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Mukhtar Babayev can be Azerbaijan’s ecology minister. Pic: AP
However it is usually investing closely in its fuel, aiming to spice up manufacturing by greater than 30% over the approaching decade.
And COP chief govt Elnur Sultanov was secretly filmed apparently utilizing his function to debate fuel offers.
Campaigners see this as at odds with the local weather management function it has put itself ahead for by internet hosting one of many annual United Nations COP talks.
Shereen Talaat, founding father of the regional local weather group MENAFem, stated increasing fuel manufacturing dangers “undermining their own credibility and jeopardising the future of our planet”.
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COP29: What’s going to occur to local weather agreements?
The opposite ‘hypocrisy’
However Azerbaijan is hardly the primary oil producer to host a COP summit. The UK was pumping out oil and fuel from the North Sea because it hosted COP26 in Glasgow.
And Azerbaijan is extra depending on its oil and fuel revenues, which give 60% of the federal government’s funds and 90% of its exports.
Glada Lahn, vitality specialist from thinktank Chatham Home, stated: “Unlike the UK, Azerbaijan’s high level of dependence on oil and gas rents means it has the incentive to increase its gas availability for export – especially when one major neighbouring consumer bloc – the EU – is asking for it.”
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the EU sought to chop off cash to Moscow by ditching Russian fuel, it wanted to look elsewhere.
That July, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Azerbaijan to double the quantity of fuel it buys to twenty billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2027.
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The Southern Gasoline Hall of pipelines that take Azerbaijani fuel to European nations
The EU’s “dash for gas” within the wake of Russian cut-offs and sanctions opened it as much as its personal accusations of “hypocrisy”, stated Ms Lahn.
“And you can understand why. In asking countries like Azerbaijan, Egypt and Qatar for more gas, it appears to go against what they preach.”
It additionally seems to have prompted Azerbaijan to import extra Russian fuel to satisfy its home demand, so it might promote extra of its personal to the EU, Ms Lahn stated, including “it is ironic”.
Azerbaijan imported no fuel from ally Russia in 2020 or 2021, however this jumped to 0.5 bcm in 2022 and 0.8-1 bcm in 2023, in response to knowledge from S&P International.
Ilham Aliyev, the nation’s autocratic president, this summer season stated it was as a result of Russian fuel was “very affordable”.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met on the BRICS summit final month. Pic: Reuters
Detentions and crackdowns
Now, nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s fuel take care of the EU is on shaky floor, because the bloc seeks to wind down its fuel use and fossil gas financing to satisfy local weather objectives.
European politicians additionally now really feel queasy about working with the autocratic Azerbaijani authorities after its fierce crackdown on activists, unbiased journalists and critics.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented circumstances of 33 folks being detained because the begin of 2023, most within the final 12 months, since Azerbaijan was confirmed as host of COP29.
“They have arrested an unprecedentedly large high number of people in a relatively short space of time, and an ever-widening circle of people,” stated Rachel Denber from HRW.
The US State Division final 12 months additionally detailed “credible reports” of “significant human rights issues”, together with arbitrary killing, torture, political prisoners and unjustified arrests of journalists.
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Cops detained activists of the opposition celebration Widespread Entrance and the Nationwide Council of Democratic Forces in 2018. Pic: AP
One among these was a tutorial with the London College of Economics, Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu.
He was arrested on a go to to Azerbaijan final 12 months on counterfeit forex fees “universally considered to be spurious and motivated by his criticism of corruption in the country”, the US State Division stated.
Commenting on this denial, Gubad’s son Ibad Bayramov stated: “It is like someone looking at the sky and saying it is black. When you see that sky is clearly not black.”
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Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu and his son Ibad Bayramov in 2022. Pic: Ibad Bayramov
However he stated “more people now know about the human rights violations in Azerbaijan than ever before”.
In October the European Parliament stated Azerbaijan’s “ongoing human rights abuses” had been “incompatible” with its function internet hosting COP – a course of that’s supposed to interact with civil society.
Citing this, in addition to fears upping fuel imports from Azerbaijan may be “compensated in turn by Baku importing Russian gas”, the MEPs referred to as on the European Fee to ditch Azerbaijan’s fuel.
Good cop or unhealthy cop?
The incentives to maintain pumping fuel and what’s left of its oil are robust.
Transitioning away from them, as nations pledged final 12 months, can be “economic suicide”, stated Gulmira Rzayeva from the Oxford Institute for Power Research.
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However it is usually extremely weak to the impacts of local weather change, given its water shortage and reliance on agriculture for one-third of its jobs.
One take a look at of the way it needs to stability these two threats will likely be in its new local weather motion plan, which can or is probably not revealed throughout COP29. The present one has the bottom attainable ranking.
The opposite will likely be the way it handles the subsequent two weeks of talks.
Ruth Townend, who co-wrote a report with Ms Lahn, stated the management might “dig in its fingernails and try to continue producing oil and gas for as long as possible”.
Or it might attempt to “break a new path… to move past fossil fuels to deal with that kind of vulnerability and essentially secure their future”.
