Venues of COP are not top

by Georgi Gotev

Holding the presidency of a UN climate summit gives the host country huge influence on its agenda and outcomes. If you thought Dubai was a bad venue for COP28, here comes COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, another petrostate.

COP is the acronym for the Conference of the Parties to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Since 1995, it has been hosted each year by a different country.

For a fortnight, it brings together between 25,000 and 40,000 participants, including heads of state and government, representatives of civil society, and the media. COP28 in Dubai just ended, with Baku recently announced as being passed the torch for next year’s COP29.

One of the iconic modern buildings in Baku is the ‘Flame Towers’, symbolising the country’s nickname ‘The Land of Fire’, historically rooted in a region where natural gas flares emit from the ground.

When I first arrived in Baku a few years ago, I took a walk along the coastal alley, only to realise that the Caspian Sea smelled of oil. A large part of the city – and the country – has been polluted since Soviet times when there was little environmental care in oil exploitation, if at all.

Many were disappointed by the choice of Baku. But this is how the UN works – it’s up to the regional group of countries whose turn has come to decide who will host COP for the year.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, hosted COP28 from 30 November 2022 until last week, on behalf of the group of ‘Asia-Pacific States’. Incidentally, the conference was presided over by the chief executive of the UAE state-owned oil company Adnoc, Sultan al-Jaber.

For the next COP, it was the turn of the ‘East European States’, who had to decide among themselves. This disparate group is the biggest anachronism since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At the UN inception of the COP, the group was designed to represent most of the allies of the Soviet Union. Today it comprises Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

Today it is precisely in this group that Russia has its few European friends. Russia is at war with Ukraine and has declared all EU members enemy countries. From the Western Balkans, Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia are also considered enemy countries by Moscow, but not Serbia.

Although Bulgaria declared its candidacy to host COP29, it was clear that Russia would oppose it – leaving little room for other options.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan declared their candidacies. The two neighbouring countries have no diplomatic relations and have fought wars over Nagorno-Karabakh. Moscow used to be more tightly allied with Armenia, but since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, it has grown closer to Azerbaijan, who is also a key ally of Turkey.

Having lost Karabakh and its powerful ally in Moscow, and fearing for its territorial integrity and economic stability as it struggles to cope with the arrival of 100,000 refugees, Armenia gave up its COP29 candidacy – and even supported Azerbaijan, as a gesture toward normalising relations.

Azerbaijan is eager to host international events to promote itself, from the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012 to the F1 Grand Prix races – despite its disgraceful record in terms of human rights and its political prisoners, including journalists.

It has the financial means and when it doesn’t have the know-how, it buys it from Western public relations firms.

The EU has also favoured buying Azeri gas as an alternative to Russian gas, although both countries are authoritarian – if not dictatorships – and both use force to solve issues with neighbours.

For the opposition-minded Azeris, hosting COP29 gives legitimacy to the regime of Ilhan Aliyev.

But some also argue that it’s not awkward that a petrostate hosts a climate conference, as this is precisely where the biggest changes must happen.

There is similar wishful thinking that international attention focusing on Azerbaijan could push the regime to loosen the grip on political dissent and freedom of expression.

Does a country need to be rich to be able to host COP? Well, Switzerland is certainly rich, but reportedly it has already decided against hosting the COP31 in 2026.

Does a country need to be a petrostate to host the climate summit? Maybe.

Brazil will host COP30 in 2025 on behalf of the Latin American and Caribbean States. Another recent decision is that from January 2024, Brazil will join the oil cartel OPEC+.

*first published in: Euractiv.com