COP29 Host Azerbaijan’s Climate Action ‘Critically Insufficient’ to Meet Paris Goal, Assessment Reveals

Current targets and policies will increase Azerbaijan’s greenhouse gas emissions by around 20% between now and 2030, Climate Action Tracker said on Wednesday. The COP29 host, a petrostate, came under fire last week for failing to mention the fossil fuel phaseout in its list of priorities for the upcoming summit.

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Azerbaijan, the country selected to host the year’s most important climate summit, is “moving backward” on climate action, an assessment of its climate policies revealed.

Conducted by Climate Action Tracker (CAT), an independent scientific project monitoring governments emissions reduction plans, the analysis concluded that the country’s policies and targets are “far from consistent” with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to “well below” 2C by the end of the century.

To avoid overshooting the Paris goal completely, the world would need to reduce emissions by 43% compared with levels in 2019. And yet, according to CAT, Azerbaijan’s greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by 20% to 2030.

In its latest Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submission, the country pledged to achieve a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century compared to 1990 levels. However, it dropped a 2030 target that was included in its predecessor.

NDCs are national plans for emissions reduction that each signatory to the Paris Agreement is required to set up and update every five years. According to Article 4.3 of the agreement, each submission should be more ambitious than the previous ones.

“Overall, we rate Azerbaijan’s climate action as ‘Critically insufficient’,” the assessment concluded. “Along with setting a more stringent climate target, Azerbaijan needs to significantly increase the ambition of its climate policies to reverse the present rapid growth in emissions and set its emissions on a firm downward trajectory.”

Azerbaijan is a highly fossil fuel-dependent state and the oldest oil-producing region in the world. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), oil and gas account for about 90% of the nation’s exports’ revenue and 60% of the government’s budget.

The United Nations came under fire in January after appointing the petrostate to lead the COP29 summit in November, the third petrostate in a row to host the talks after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year and Egypt in 2022. 

In April, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said his country will continue to invest in gas production in order to meet European Union demand for energy in a “sign of responsibility.” The remarks were part of his opening speech on the second day of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue, a yearly international conference co-hosted by the German Foreign Office and the current COP presidency that brings together selected countries to prepare for the UN summit.

“Having oil and gas deposits is not our fault. It’s a gift of God. We must be judged not by that but on how we use this resource for the development of the country, for reduction of poverty, unemployment and what is our target with respect to [the] green agenda,” Aliyev remarked.

Last week, the COP29 host was once again at the center of criticism for failing to include any mentions of a plan to phase out fossil fuels in its summit’s Action Agenda. Instead, the country outlined global energy storage, electric grids, and climate finance as priorities.

This is despite the COP28 deal’s unprecedented call to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner to achieve net-zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the primary drivers of global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature.

Global fossil fuel consumption has more than doubled in the last 50 years as countries around the world have worked to improve their standards of living and economic output. Scientists have long warned that curbing fossil fuel extraction and consumption is the only way to halt global warming and secure a liveable future.