The countdown is on for the 29th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP29). The event opens on 11 November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Six months ahead of the climate summit, the authorities in this country at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia are stepping up their diplomatic efforts to reassure people that the event is well organised, and taking advantage of the opportunity to assert themselves in the field of international cooperation.
It was in this context that Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, was recently granted an audience with his counterpart Arlette Soudan-Nonault of the Republic of Congo. In the presence of their heads of state, llham Aliev and Dénis Sassou Nguesso, they signed a “protocol of intent” in the fields of the environment and sustainable development. The aim is to “enhance biodiversity and natural capital for diversification and economic development”.
Related activities will be integrated into the official programme of COP29, including a high-level panel on the planet’s green lungs. This will be a continuation of the Summit of the Three Major Forest Basins (Amazonia, Congo Basin, Borneo-Mekong) that Brazzaville hosted in October 2023, but this time with greater participation by politicians, representatives of civil society and development partners.
Is COP29 a geopolitical tool for Baku?
The stakes for the Baku government are twofold. Firstly, to prove to the international community that, despite the ongoing conflict over the conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, it is perfectly capable of organising and conducting peaceful debates on the future of the planet, in particular the oil, mining and gas extractions that are accelerating the decline in biodiversity in the Congo Basin, to the detriment of the survival of humanity.
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Secondly, Azerbaijan, which was ranked as the second country with the “best eco-development trends” in Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index (EPI) in 2012, will be seeking to demonstrate to COP29 participants its current efforts in favour of energy and ecological transition. This is a strategic imperative for this former Soviet territory, whose economic expansion is largely driven by the fossil fuel industry.
Benoit-Ivan Wansi