COP29 OBSERVERS HAVE said that using the conference to ‘broker backroom deals’ on fossil fuels is unacceptable in the wake of a report that a senior official on Azerbaijan’s executive team was engaged in a meeting about a potential fossil fuel deal.
The BBC and Global Witness have reported that Elnur Soltanov, the COP29 CEO, told a man he believed was a potential investor that Azerbaijan has a “lot of gas fields” to be developed and discussed “investment opportunities” in its state oil and gas company.
The man that Soltanov was meeting, however, was a Global Witness investigator working undercover.
The annual COP conferences are attended by delegations from countries around the world to make important decisions about climate action.
The presidency of the conference rotates each year and this year is held by Azerbaijan, which is hosting the event in its capital city of Baku.
Azerbaijan’s fossil fuels sector accounts for around one-third of the country’s GDP and 90% of its exports.
Global Witness says its representative approached the COP29 team under the guise of being the head of an energy investment firm from Hong Kong, which was also fabricated.
He told the team he was interested in sponsoring COP29 but wanted in return to discuss opportunities to invest in the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (Socar).
In a virtual meeting that Global Witness secretly recorded, which the BBC has also reviewed, Soltanov tells the undercover investigator, believing him to be an energy executive, that the aim of the COP is to solve the climate crisis and transition away’ from fossil fuels, but that anyone, including oil and gas companies, could “come with solutions” as Azerbaijan’s “doors are open”.
Soltanov described how Socar is “trading oil and gas all over the world” and that it will have a “certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever”.
He said he would be “happy” to connect the ‘investment firm’ with Socar to start discussions.
Socar ‘Green’, a subsidiary founded earlier this year, is one of the top partners of COP29. Its logo is displayed alongside other sponsors at the main entrance of the venue.
The role of a host country at a COP is to help negotiations by trying to bridge gaps between countries to reach a consensus on a final deal.
The presidency is not the be-all and end-all of a COP, however. The issues being discussed are progressed from year to year by country delegations, often comprised of officials with many years of experience around the negotiating tables, and the host country does not technically have any additional influence aside from moderating the talks.
The COP presidency rotates between UN regions each year and a vote is held within a region to determine which country will host. 2021 was Scotland, 2022 was Egypt, and 2023 was Dubai. France held the presidency in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was signed, while next year’s presiding country for COP30 is due to be Brazil.
In a statement to The Journal in response to the report, Jerry Mac Evilly, Head of Policy in Friends of the Earth Ireland said that it was the ”latest in a long line of findings” that key states are still “rooted” in fossil fuel interests.
“Year on year we have witnessed the increasing influence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP,” MacEvilly said.
“The world has just experienced its hottest twelve months in history and devastating floods have brought destruction and heartbreak, most notably in Spain in recent weeks,” he said.
“But for too long those who profit from maintaining the current fossil fuel system have stopped, delayed or watered down actions to halt global heating.
Allowing polluting interests unmitigated access risks undermining the very legitimacy of the COP itself.
MacEvilly called on Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan to support efforts for fossil fuel lobbying to be pushed out of the COP process.
“Ireland has an important role to play in this case given our membership of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and Minister Ryan’s role in facilitating the negotiations on adaptation,” MacEvilly said.
“We call on the Minister to support efforts to rid the COP of fossil fuel lobbyists and sponsorship, including by excluding the industry from delegations and developing a new Accountability Framework.’
Similarly, Jasper Inventor, Head of Greenpeace’s COP29 Delegation, said that Azerbaijan should be investing in COP29 over fossil fuels.
”As COP host, Azerbaijan needs to deliver an outcome that accelerates climate action rather than accelerate the extreme weather impacts we are already experiencing,” Inventor told The Journal.
“Trying to broker backroom deals on gas expansion plans while hosting negotiations to secure a new climate finance goal is simply hypocrisy,” he said.
“Credibility can only be achieved in brokering an agreement at COP29 on an ambitious new climate finance goal to help support urgently needed climate action in developing countries.”
Other organisations, including Amnesty International, have also made criticisms after the revelation and called for fossil fuels to be entirely detached from COP.
The main aim at COP29 is to secure a new global target for climate finance that would direct more funds to help developing countries that have contributed the least to climate change but are facing the worst of its impacts and are the least equipped to deal with it.
Many observers say that a key source of public funding could be found by governments stopping their subsidies for fossil fuel industries and using the money for climate finance instead to help stop global warming, rather than making it worse.
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