The president of the UN climate conference COP29, which will be held in November in Azerbaijan, told AFP that his country will continue to increase gas production as “a transitional energy”, in parallel with investment in renewable alternatives.
In an interview in Bonn, Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijani Environment Minister, defended his country’s strategy, despite the fact that UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called this week to gradually eliminate fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming. .
Azerbaijan is the second major hydrocarbon producer to host a climate conference, after COP28 in the United Arab Emirates in 2023.
“We plan to increase natural gas volumes and, at the same time, our renewable energy projects for several years,” said Babayev, a former executive at the Caucasus country’s national oil and gas company.
A few months after world leaders agreed at COP28 in Dubai to gradually abandon fossil fuels, Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliev, called his country’s gas reserves a “gift from the gods.”
The organizers of the conference, which will be held between November 11 and 22, announced that Aliev will call for a global truce to be respected during the marathon negotiations in Baku. Last November, Azerbaijan itself launched a lightning offensive against Nagorno Karabakh, a territory of Armenian separatists.
“The COP truce initiative is something that the head of state of Azerbaijan will present, calling on the international community to observe a ceasefire,” said Yalchyn Rafiev, chief negotiator of the Azerbaijani COP29 presidency.
“Wars and armed conflicts, military activities, are one of the activities that generate the most emissions and are directly linked to the climate agenda,” said Rafiev.
– “Global effort” –
Babayev expressed hope that the COP presidency will be able to conclude an agreement to establish a fund through which rich countries will help developing nations invest in clean energy.
This is the most difficult issue of the negotiations in Bonn, headquarters of the UN Climate Organization, where diplomats meet every June, in an intermediate stage between two COPs.
Developing countries want to increase the previous goal set at $100 billion annually, which is contributed by rich economies as a recognition of their historical responsibility for global warming.
These donors, who are mainly Western countries and Japan, want China and the Gulf countries to contribute as well.
Rafiev defended that obtaining these funds is a “global effort” and stated that one cannot “single out one part or one country in particular.”
“The current flow is insufficient. And no matter who contributes, it is necessary to increase the funds available for developing countries,” he stated.
In Bonn, Azerbaijan proposed seeking funds using “innovative sources,” which could include asking fossil energy producers to finance climate policies in poorer countries.
“It is a very preliminary idea and we have already had the opportunity to debate it with different countries and international financial institutions, as well as with UN institutions. We continue talking about it,” said Babayev, who did not specify whether it will be a tax or a mechanism. of another type.
“We are listening to everyone, and based on this principle, we will prepare a final proposal,” he added.
In the fight against climate change, other countries have proposed imposing taxes on the oil industry and other actors responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, such as aviation.
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AFP
