Roaming around what is believed to be modern-day Baku over 700 years ago, the explorer Marco Polo gazed with wonder at “a spring from which gushes a stream of oil, in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once”.
The birthplace of crude refining, Azerbaijan has embedded fossil fuels in the fabric of its society for centuries. Oil, and more recently, gas have never stopped flowing from the vast reservoirs dotted around the Caspian basin.
…
But as it gears up to host the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, Azerbaijan wants to show the world a different image. Burnishing its clean energy credentials through its state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, is part of the plan.
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“A green division is meaningless for the climate without an accompanying plan to phase out oil and gas”, Myriam Douo, a senior campaigner with Oil Change International, told Climate Home. “The reality is that to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown more than half of fossil fuels in existing fields must stay in the ground”.
I think greens are being unduly harsh in their criticism of Azerbaijan. A COP conference host country hatching its first ever green plan should be encouraged as baby steps, not sneered at.
Lets not forget, the Azerbaijanis are a considerate people, I’m sure they’ll remember to provide space for a few green workshops in the middle of all the oil, gas and international arms sales negotiations.
How could this get funnier? Azerbaijan, once described as the nation where it rains oil, has just appointed a state oil company veteran as COP29 President.
Azerbaijan appoint state oil company veteran as Cop29 president
Published on 04/01/2024, 5:19pm
Mukhtar Babayev spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar, where he tried to limit the company’s environmental damage.
The government of Azerbaijan has appointed its environment minister Mukhtar Babayev to be the president of the Cop29 climate talks in Baku in November.
While Babayev will chair the talks, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister Yalchin Rafiyev will be his lead negotiator, according to the Cop28 presidency.
Babayev spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar, where he tried to limit the company’s environmental damage, before becoming environment minister in 2018.
One negotiator who met Babayev recently described him as “nice” and “soft” but added “you don’t feel the authority and status like from [Cop28 president] Sultan [Al-Jaber], I don’t feel he is an independent person able to push for phasing out fossil fuels globally”.
Rafiyev is a newcomer to climate diplomacy. He did not attend the Cop26 or Cop27 climate talks and his active X (formerly known as Twitter) account has only mentioned climate change once in over six years.
My first thought this has to be a joke to annoy environmentalists, but the UN unhabitat.org website confirms the location of the next climate conference;
Obviously it would be unfair to let the UAE get all the oil and gas sales action, it was inevitable another major petro-industry player would want a chance to sell their product to climate delegates.
I predicted Saudi Arabia would be the next venue, but the Persian Gulf is a little unsettled right now – Yemen based Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for burning an oil depot in Jeddah in 2022, apparently as part of Saudi’s ongoing proxy war with Iran, so maybe Azerbaijan was seen as a more settled venue.
Having said that Azerbaijan’s geopolitical situation is not entirely settled. Azerbaijan fought and won a significant battle against Armenia in 2020, which ended with a significant border shift in Azerbaijan’s favour, and Russian peacekeepers stationed in the disputed border region. There were continued clashes as recently as 2022, so international arms dealers might also be interested in attending the climate conference. It is likely Armenian delegates will want to attend the conference, so the COP29 floor show could be particularly entertaining this year.
The only question, how will COP29 organisers convince small nations delegates to sign the deal? Surely they won’t fall for the same trick twice?
Correction (EW): John Hultquist points out Azerbaijan seized control of ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, leading to the ethnic Armenian population fleeing the affected region, so the area is hotter than I thought. Perhaps COP29 will be the “Lord of War” international arms dealer climate conference rather than another COP28 style petro-deal climate conference. I wonder if delegates will remember to put in an appearance at the climate sessions?
The horde has left Dubai, many in their private jets. Next stop in the champagne and caviar COPcon is Baku, Azerbaijan, which, at 92 feet below sea level, seems an appropriate place to bury Net Zero. The award came on the heels of an historic agreement between Azerbaijan and next-door Armenia, which both nations hope will bring peace to intertwined peoples with a long history of deadly strife.
Azerbaijan, a mostly Muslim nation of 10 million people, straddles Europe and Asia. It relies heavily on oil and gas production, which accounts for nearly half the nation’s GDP and nearly 93 percent of its export revenue. Baku has been an oil center since 1837when tsarist Russians built the first oil-distilling factory nearby.
Prior to the 1905 Russian revolution, Baku produced half the world’s oil sold in international markets. During World War II, Baku supplied 80 percent of the oil for Russia’s eastern front. The nation has rebuilt and expanded its infrastructure since liberation from Soviet rule in 1991.
But while the new Azerbaijani government rebuilt synagogues, it also, in 1990, began a pogrom to expel resident Armenians. Despite this and the recent conquest of ethnic Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region west of Baku, Azerbaijan won the right to host COP 29 when Armenia dropped its bid and supported Baku. The defeated quasi-independent Nagorno-Karabakh government agreed to dissolve as of January 1, 2024.
Meanwhile, the imperialists in Brussels and other European capitals continue to plot their abandonment of the fuels that supply 82 percent of the world’s electricity – a move that would destroy the Azerbaijani economy.
A dozen countries led by the Netherlands have announced crackdowns on what the EU calls “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.” Canada’s climate minister, Steven Guilbeault, says harming oil companies “ensures that spending is aligned with climate ambition.”
Clearly, such planners have not gotten the memo. Or they choose to ignore the wisdom of the Global South (and China, too, for that matter).
As Brendan O’Neill so brilliantly pointed out, “African diplomats said at COP 28 that ‘the idea of a fossil-fuel phaseout [is] unworkable.’” Moreover, he added, “India, China, Brazil, and other nations are not prepared to sacrifice their economic health at the altar of our deranged anti-modernism.”
O’Neill also hits on the real story of COP 28 – that, for perhaps the first time in 28 tries, the clash between Western ideologues “who are exhausted with the modern world” and developing nations “who want in on the modern world” was out in the open for the world to see.
Developing nations spokespeople tended to agree. Nigeria’s environment minister, Ishaq Salako, expressed astonishment at the rhetoric of John Kerry, Al Gore, and others, saying, “Asking Nigeria, or indeed, asking Africa, to phase out fossil fuels is like asking us to stop breathing without life support.”
The G77 coalition of 135 developing nations also made it clear that its members will not stop using coal (and oil and gas, as well), which they see as vital to ensuring what a spokesperson called “a dignified life for our people.”
Kenyan agricultural engineer Jusper Machogu told the COP 28 delegates, “we want to flourish, we want to replace the 90 percent of Africa’s energy that comes from burning firewood, cow dung, and crop residue. We want to have the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and synthetic fertilizers, all available thanks to fossil fuels.”
After 500 years of exploiting Africa’s resources and doing little, if anything, to bring prosperity or even electricity to Africa’s billions, the West now seeks to bully Africans into abandoning a major source of continental wealth – and drive them deeper into debt to install ineffective wind farms and solar arrays. Only Africa (and a few other scattered poor nations) would suffer, as China and India have long since told their would-be superiors to pound sand.
The Institute for Energy Research notes that while nations “officially” agreed to reduce global fossil fuel consumption, oil, gas, and coal still account for about 80 percent of the world’s energy, with production of each hitting new records as world energy demand grows. Even the stodgy British, who proudly abandoned coal years ago, approved a new coal mine shortly after realizing the Russian oil might not be so readily available as an alternative.
Post-pandemic global interest rates, spiked by massive “Net Zero” spending by the Biden Administration and European governments, are adding to the already unaffordable costs of building new renewable energy projects. Cost, along with citizen outrage, is making it increasingly difficult to build new wind farms and solar arrays.
The UN admits that developing countries would need nearly six trillion dollars over the next few years to give up fossil fuels and try to power entire nations on intermittent energy sources – all of which would depend on either debt to mostly European banks or heavy strings attached to government-to-government loans or grants. Yet prior promises of $100 billion have yet to materialize.
[Maybe developing nations also see how Ukraine’s abandonment of its nuclear arsenal left that country vulnerable to Russian aggression.]
Growing backlash in Europe adds to the suspicion that Africans would never see the promised “aid.” At the recent EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, European Council President Charles Michel proposed cutting nearly all of a 10 billion euro fund earmarked for helping European nations build renewable energy projects (wind turbines, hydrogen plants, carbon capture) – a timid enough response to the profligate trillion-dollar boondoggles of the Biden Administration.
The simple truth is that not even the West has enough money to spare to disengage from the engine that fueled the Industrial Revolution. Matt Ridley cites a Climate Change Economicsarticle that admits that achieving Net Zero by 2050 would save about a trillion dollars a year in avoided costs of climate change – at a cost of $10 to $43 trillion a year just to get there. Simply put, every dollar invested in Net Zero brings the West closer to bankruptcy.
O’Neill describes COP 28 as “a war of sorts between Americans and Europeans beholden to the eco-religion and developing nations more interested in growth.” Allison Pearson chastises the eco-religionists who ‘claim that they alone are on the right side of humanity” despite the fact that their project to “save the planet” spells a “painful reduction in comfort and joy for millions” (I would say billions).
Pearson chides the fearmongers who predict a “climate catastrophe” without Net Zero for ignoring the elephant in the room – that we are “certain to have an economic and societal catastrophe if we persist in trying to reach that goal by 2050. Humanity cannot bear it.”
O’Neill condemns the “neocolonial arrogance, its indifference to the needs and rights of people in the developing world” that stands starkly exposed at COP 28 as a vain search for meaning by a generation that so desperately wants to be as relevant as those who brought an end to racial segregation and Apartheid generations ago.
Energy consultant Tilak Doshi called out the “carbon imperialism” of the U.S., the EU, and their developed country allies at COP 26 in Glasgow for daring to dictate a carbonless future energy policy for the developing world. While that arrogance was still in evidence at Dubai, what has changed, he said, “is the pointed responses in opposition by government representatives outside the climate-evangelical Western group of countries intent on weaning the world off fossil fuels.”
Kerry, Gore, and the climate crowd are eagerly anticipating their visit to Baku, where they intend to lay out plans to turn Azerbaijan into a deserted wasteland and quash the hopes and dreams of Africans desperate for affordable electricity and other “modern conveniences.”
Perhaps, though, they should take a cue from the host nation and its historic enemy Armenia, who laid down their weapons to join arm in arm to welcome these glamourous barbarians from the West.
Gro Brundtland, when chairing the world’s first conference on sustainable development, stated that “sustainable” must yield to the higher goal of alleviating poverty, and in the real world, this must include energy poverty. It’s time to abandon climate imperialism – and to set Africa free to chart its own destiny.
That would be good for Africa, even better for the planet and all of its people.
Climate campaigners from Al Gore and John Kerry, down to the oddest imported student radical, are freaking out over the draft final text as the climate talks in Dubai near their conclusion.
At issue is whether the “outcome” will call for the “phase out” of fossil fuels, or merely call for fossil fuel “reduction” and similar “weasel words.”
Either term will leave nations with tons of wiggle room to avoid, or delay destroying their economies through energy starvation.
As veterans of the UN climate process since the whole shebang began, CFACT has seen this drama play out before.
The UN conference nears its end with no agreement in sight and goes into late night extra innings.
No matter what happens, the conference officials emerge bleary-eyed and proclaim a major victory, leaving it up to the rest of us to sort through what happened and figure it out. Often, as is likely this time, the conference ends in de facto collapse.
“COP28 is now on the verge of complete failure,” Al Gore said Monday. “This obsequious draft reads as if OPEC dictated it word for word. It is even worse than many had feared. It is ‘Of the Petrostates, By the Petrostates.” Gore concluded.
OPEC, along with Russia and China, did in fact write the text.
“The fact that the U.N. chose a petro-state, the United Arab Emirates, to host COP28 was an ominous sign to begin with.” Wrote Michael Mann of debunked temperature hockey stick fame. “The UAE’s appointment of a fossil fuel executive, Sultan Al Jaber, to preside as COP28 president made matters worse.”
CNN reports that, “The secretary-general of the oil-producing group OPEC, Haitham Al Ghais, called on members and allies last week to ‘proactively reject’ any language that targeted fossil fuels rather than emissions. The letter, written before the latest draft was posted, noted the previous option for a “fossil fuels phase out” and said it would be ‘unacceptable that politically motivated campaigns put our people’s prosperity and future at risk.’”
The announcement at COP 28 that next year’s climate summit will be held in Azerbaijan, another oil producing state, has team climate up in arms. Next year is Europe’s turn, but Russia vowed to veto any E.U. member nation as host in protest of E.U. support for Ukraine. Azerbaijan is a former member of the Soviet bloc, but not a member of the E.U. or NATO and was acceptable to Moscow.
Soon we will find out how far climate campaigners will be able to reshape the COP 28 outcome in the waning minutes of the summit.
The actual choice will be between a text which gives Russia, China and OPEC clear language enabling them to keep their fossil fuels, or whether they will agree to simply lie about “phasing them out.”
Oil-reliant Azerbaijan chosen to host Cop29 climate talks The Eastern European group of countries has chosen Baku, Azerbaijan to host next year’s Cop29 climate talks, according to two sources in the Cop28 meeting room where the decision was made.
DUBAI, Dec 8 (Reuters) – Azerbaijan is tipped to host next year’s U.N. climate summit, after striking a late deal with longtime adversary Armenia over its bid. Reuters has the story.
While some diplomats said other countries including Russia – which has blocked other host candidates – were expected to back Baku’s bid, there was no official confirmation from Moscow on Friday. The issue is still being negotiated at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
The decision over who will take over from current COP28 host, the United Arab Emirates, has been in an unprecedented geopolitical deadlock, after Russia said it would veto any European Union country’s bid to host. The EU has sanctioned Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. Azerbaijan is not an EU member.
Azerbaijan confirmed late on Thursday it had struck a deal with Armenia that allows Baku to bid to host the COP29 talks without the threat of an Armenian veto.
The choice of a COP host needs support from all countries in the U.N.’s eastern Europe regional group.
“We received particular support from most of the countries [in the eastern European group]. Russia has also supported our bid,” Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said on Friday.
A representative for Russia’s delegation at COP28 declined to comment. Russia’s Energy Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Azerbaijan is an oil and gas producer and a member of OPEC+.
The United Arab Emirates has faced criticism for appointing Sultan al-Jaber, the head of its state-run oil company ADNOC, as president of this year’s COP28 summit.
Some delegates at COP28 have raised concerns about holding the world’s climate negotiations in an oil producer for a second year running.
“I do understand these concerns,” Hajizada said.
“Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is rich in oil and gas, Azerbaijan’s strategic goals are the diversification of energy, resources, especially applied to wind and solar energy,” he said.
Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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