COP - Out
The Crude Irony of Azerbaijan Hosting the Next United Nations Climate Conference
In 2022, Egypt exported around $9.53 billion in petroleum gas and a combined $6.25 billion of crude and refined petroleum, making hydrocarbon production the single largest industrial activity in the country. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), an OPEC member since 1967, derives 30% of its GDP from oil and gas production. Their national company, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has pledged to increase its crude oil production from three million to 5 million barrels a day by 2027. A whopping 90% of Azerbaijan’s export revenues come from oil and natural gas.
What do all these petrostates have in common? All will or have hosted the Conference of the Parties or COP, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change. COP is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where 197 countries plus the EU convene to assess climate progress (or lack thereof), share scientific and market technologies, and make collective decisions promoting global greenhouse gas reductions. The Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are arguably some of the most famous products of past COPS.
The host country is more than just a venue. The COP President, a representative from said country, sets the agenda and lays out the key initiatives of the summit. The UAE COP prioritized water security, agriculture methods, and carbon capture and storage technologies (climate activists often view it as a band-aid solution), over the promotion of renewables. That's not to say there weren’t some victories. The 21-page “Global Stocktake,” the document that outlines the pathways that nations must take to limit global warming to below 2°, finally includes the language acknowledging that countries need to “transition away” from fossil fuels.
It's also worth noting there's a little irony in all COPs, petrostate or not. Tens of thousands fly in from across the globe, many on private jets or government planes. COP 26, held in Glasgow, yielded a carbon footprint of around 102,500 tons of CO2.
Before the COP began in Baku, Azerbaijan on November 11th, there were already concerns that environmental progress would be stunted. A report from Human Rights Watch and Freedom Now claims that Azerbaijan is carrying out a crackdown on activists and government critics. This includes the arrest this April of human rights and climate justice advocate Anar Mammadli.
President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, laid out his vision for COP 29 during the preparatory meeting this April Called the Petersburg Climate Dialogue. He emphasized the key role fossil fuel-producing countries play in global development, (calling Azerbaijani reserves a “gift from God”) and noted that countries with fossil fuels should be “among those demonstrating solidarity with respect to issues related to climate change.” To Aliyev, solidarity seems to mean ramping up renewable energy development alongside fossil fuel production. Azerbaijan declared 2024 “Green World Solidarity Year”and has put in place the framework for 1300 MW of solar and wind. This upcoming COP has also been dubbed “The Finance COP.” A new Climate Finance Action Fund is on the table, aiming to draw on voluntary contributions from wealthier, high-polluting countries to support climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries.
President Biden has supported Azerbaijan as the next pick, hailing the country as “a significant pillar of global energy security” in a letter written to Ilham Aliyev. Biden is referring to the EU and US’s reliance on Azerbaijani natural gas as a replacement for the Russian supply. However, in the EU, decoupling from Russian natural gas has been messy. Russian gas was never officially sanctioned, and the Bear still accounts for around 15% of the EU’s total gas supply( albeit down from 40% before the invasion of Ukraine). Some countries are still woefully dependent, including Austria that receives around 95% of its gas directly from Russia (keyword directly).
That being said, the EU is still continuing to wean itself off, and doubling gas exports from Azerbaijan to the bloc has been a priority for both parties. A transit deal, allowing the flow of Gazprom (Russia’s state-owned natural gas company) gas through Ukraine, will expire at the end of this year. Ukraine (understandably) has no intentions of renewing the deal with Moscow. Hence, EU and Ukrainian officials have suggested Azerbaijan take advantage of this vacancy to funnel in its gas.
The irony here is that Azerbaijan and Russia have cozied up along energy policy lines. Russian exports of oil and natural gas to Azerbaijan have skyrocketed since Russia lost some customers on the European market and had a surplus of cheaper products. Between November 2022 and March 2023, Gazprom supplied Azerbaijan’s state natural gas company with almost a billion cubic meters of the stuff. Russian oil exports to Azerbaijan nearly quadrupled in 2023. Critics fear that Azerbaijan will simply use Russian gas to meet its own domestic energy needs, while exporting domestically produced gas to the EU, essentially laundering the gas and circumventing the effects of the EU reductions.
Fears of performative environmental policy making, backsliding, and COP 29 being beholden to Russian interests, are not the only controversies surrounding Azerbaijan as the next host. Human rights concerns also lay in the balance. Azerbaijan may be using the climate conference to “greenwash” away the grief and blood of the 120,000 Armenians who have been forced to flee from the Armenian ethnic enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan only won the bid to host the conference after Armenia agreed to withdraw its own application for the summit in exchange for 32 Armenian prisoners of war captured in the region in September 2023.
Congressional leaders have urged the Biden Administration to utilize COP to hold Azerbaijan accountable for the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and its authoritarian crackdown. Sixty House and Senate members penned a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken urging him to take decisive action against these human rights abuses before the global summit.
Weaponizing environmentalism to cover up or even pursue ulterior motives is not new to Azerbaijan. Starting in December 2022, and lasting almost 5 months. “Eco-activists,” affiliated with Ilham Aliyev’s regime, blockaded the only highway that connected the people of Nagorno-Karabakh with the outside world. The activists were allegedly protesting the environmental impacts of illegal ore mining within the region, even after the mining operations had ceased. On Feb 22, 2023, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to halt the blockade, but the damage had been done and potatoes had become a luxury.
A global conference aimed at protecting the resources and rights of future generations, led by an administration that has been stripping a population of their homes and heritage almost seems satirical. A summit on reducing climate change led by one of the most fossil fuel-dependent nations certainly raises eyebrows. However, much remains to be seen. Perhaps the parties can come together and hold Azerbaijan accountable for its violations of international law. Perhaps the parties can make real progress towards reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps through diplomatic negotiations, we can create a world where energy progress and security do not come at the cost of livelihoods.