By Paul Vartan Sookiasian
The United Nations global climate summit COP29 got off to an unusual start in Baku, Azerbaijan on Tuesday, as President Ilham Aliyev spent much of his opening address taking aim at critics, defending his rule, and promoting the use of fossil fuels. This behavior is in line with earlier warnings that the Azerbaijani government is using the event to “greenwash” its reputation, “peacewash” last year’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, and cover internal repression against activists and journalists.
After a brief introduction that called Azerbaijan’s hosting of COP29 “a sign of respect to our country” from the international community, Aliyev immediately launched into attacks on Armenia and defended Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing last year of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. He emphasized Azerbaijan’s actions, including its launching of the 2020 war, were “in accordance with the UN charter and international law,” despite repeated emphasis from the international community that use of force was not a legitimate recourse.
Aliyev complained in his opening speech that after selection as COP29 host, his country “became a target of a coordinated, well-orchestrated campaign of slander and blackmail” from what he called the “Western fake news media.” This is a reference to the numerous critical articles and investigations into the repressive nature of the Azerbaijani regime, as the country underwent increased scrutiny as host of a major international event.
Aliyev’s rhetoric also reinforced the concern among observers that the host-state’s focus at COP29 is on its reputation and addressing personal grievances rather than the immediate need for collective action on climate.
“There is a question of proportionality between the scale of the human tragedy we have seen in recent days and weeks in Spain, for example, and hearing more complaints from the host about an alleged smear campaign against Azerbaijan. We’re at risk of losing sight of what is really important at COP29,” Laurence Broers, an Associate Fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House and the author of a recent report on the challenges facing Azerbaijan as COP29 host, explained to CivilNet by email.
Meanwhile Aliyev’s ire at what he called the “so-called independent NGOs” abroad mirrors his crackdown on ones at home. While he has prevented dissent through the mass arrests in recent months of any remaining opposition, even marginal activists and journalists, he has been unable to do the same to those operating globally. As COP29 opened Monday, Freedom House released the results of its fact finding mission that concluded Azerbaijan’s attack on Nagorno-Karabakh last year amounted to ethnic cleansing, while last month Amnesty International called on states to exert pressure on Azerbaijani authorities “to end [their] assault on civil society.”
In his opening speech, Aliyev also doubled-down on his controversial statement from earlier in the year that oil and gas are “a gift from God,” a complete repudiation of the decision at last year’s COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels. Speaking after President Aliyev, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres strongly disagreed, saying that “doubling down on fossil fuels is absurd.” He called for fossil fuel production and consumption to be slashed thirty percent by 2030.
Aliyev got even more personal the following day while addressing a small island summit, during which he tied the issue of climate change to “neo-colonialism,” singling out the overseas territories of France and the Netherlands as being “oppressed” by their home countries.
Azerbaijan’s antagonism toward France over support for Armenia is well known, and Baku received attention earlier this year for allegedly encouraging violent riots in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia and for a campaign to disrupt the Paris Olympics. The addition of the Netherlands to this rhetoric is more recent and appears to be in response to resolutions passed by the Dutch parliament last month calling for the protection of Armenian cultural heritage under threat in Nagorno-Karabakh and for Azerbaijan to release all Armenian prisoners of war.
In response, the Dutch Foreign Ministry issued a sharp rejection of Aliyev’s claims while France pulled its lead negotiator, environment minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who called Aliyev’s statements “unworthy of a COP presidency.”
According to Broers, “The reiteration of key talking points from long-standing discursive battles over Azerbaijan-specific issues, rather than a wider view appropriate to the urgency and global scale of climate change, is a lost opportunity.”
With so much riding on the negotiations at COP29, the fallout from Aliyev’s offensive further complicates the already very difficult task of mitigating global climate disaster.
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