Azerbaijan flag on Sept. 26, 2023.
Emmanuel Dunand | Afp | Getty Pictures
Azerbaijan is poised to host subsequent 12 months’s COP29 local weather change summit after successful backing from different Jap European nations on Saturday.
The choice, which resolves months of geopolitical impasse over the place the following annual U.N. local weather summit will probably be held, shortly drew focus to Azerbaijan’s oil manufacturing and its human rights file.
With the rotating presidency of the summit shifting to Jap Europe subsequent 12 months, nations from the area agreed through the ongoing COP28 summit in Dubai to again Baku’s bid, the co-chairs of the group of nations stated in a letter the U.N. local weather change physique on Saturday, seen by Reuters.
“We’re very grateful to all countries, in particular to the Eastern European group and the [COP28 summit] host United Arab Emirates for their support,” Azerbaijan’s Ecology Minister Mukhtar Babayev stated in an deal with from the principle stage at COP28 on Saturday.
Zhala Bayramova, daughter of anti-corruption researcher Gubad Ibadoghlu, who was jailed in Azerbaijan after criticizing the nation’s oil and gasoline trade, informed Reuters she was appalled on the resolution.
“He is risking his life for this work,” Bayramova stated. “This work is quite meaningless when you have COP29 hosted in Azerbaijan.”
A spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s overseas ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark about Ibadoghlu.
“Having COP29 gives legitimacy to the government,” Bayramova added.
The choice on who would host COP29 had been held up after Russia vowed to veto any bid by a European Union nation. The EU has imposed sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
The bid by Azerbaijan, which isn’t an EU member, wants approval from the almost 200 nations current on the COP28 talks. Delegates stated they anticipated the vote to be a formality.
To win the bid, Azerbaijan reached an settlement with longtime adversary Armenia that assured it will not face the specter of an Armenian veto.
However Baku’s relations with some Western nations have deteriorated since September, when Azerbaijan retook full management of the breakaway area of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting an exodus of the territory’s ethnic Armenian inhabitants.
Holding the presidency of a U.N. local weather summit offers a rustic enormous affect on its agenda and outcomes.
The COP28 summit within the UAE has been the most important but, with greater than 90,000 delegates registered.
Whereas the choice on who will host the occasion is normally made years prematurely to permit nations time to arrange, Aykhan Hajizada, a spokesperson at Azerbaijan’s ministry of overseas affairs, informed Reuters on Friday that Baku was effectively outfitted to deal with the occasion.
When Azerbaijan’s bid was first reported on Thursday, some raised considerations about holding the worldwide local weather talks in one other oil producing nation.
Azerbaijan is an oil and gasoline producer and a member of OPEC+.
Richard Black of the vitality assume tank Ember wrote on social media web site X: “The road from #COP28 will, it seems, lead to Baku, possibly the world’s first ‘oil capital’ a thousand years ago, where Marco Polo documented oil being traded, and where tourists can still top up their health by getting into a bath of crude.”
Hajizada stated he understood these considerations, and famous Azerbaijan’s plans to diversify its vitality sources to incorporate extra wind and solar energy.
The European Fee final 12 months signed a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan to double imports of Azeri pure gasoline as a part of its technique to diversify away from Russia.
Legitimacy to the federal government
Ibadoghlu, a professor on the London College of Economics, was arrested on fees of coping with counterfeit cash and extremism when visiting household in Azerbaijan in July.
He had served from 2013-2019 because the civil society consultant to the board of the Extractives Business Transparency Initiative (EITI), a corporation that advocates for open and accountable administration of oil, gasoline and mineral assets.
The U.S. State Division and the Group for Safety and Cooperation in Europe earlier this 12 months condemned Ibadoghlu’s arrest and demanded his launch. The EU in September adopted a joint movement to demand an investigation into the arrest.
“We can’t let Azerbaijan use COP29 to distract from its abysmal record on freedom of speech and human rights,” stated Joe Bardwell, a spokesman for Publish What You Pay, the group that created the EITI.
“As a major oil producer, Azerbaijan will need to listen to its critics,” he stated.