Next UN Climate Talks Are Critical To Plot Aid For Poorer Nations, Says Incoming President

Washington — The man who will lead the United Nations climate talks in November sees the negotiations as a critical link in international efforts to combat global warming.

The conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, must build on last year’s successful agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, according to Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s environment minister, who will preside over the COP29 discussions in the fall. And this fall’s gathering must create the path for countries to collaborate in 2025 on more robust plans to reduce heat-trapping gases, according to Babayev.

Baku is the location to find common ground on how affluent countries may provide financial assistance to poorer countries who do not contribute as much to global warming but suffer more from climate change, Babayev said in a 30-minute interview with The Associated Press at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Washington.

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Next UN Climate Talks Are Critical To Plot Aid For Poorer Nations, Says Incoming President

“We need to consider any possible actions or activities to bring the parties to be closer to each other,” he said. “We consider Baku as a bridge between the developing and developed world.”

However, the bridge is still under construction.

Most previous climate discussions, known as Conferences of the Parties (COPs), took years to arrange. However, due to geopolitics in Eastern Europe, world leaders were unable to agree on a location for COP29 ahead of time. This is crucial since the host country has the presidency and controls the agenda.

Baku was picked in December as part of a peace agreement between warring Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Babayev will not officially assume command of discussions until November 11, when COP29 begins in Baku. Successful climate discussions can require months or years of travel and labor by president-designates like Babayev to provide the groundwork for agreements and coalitions.

“We only had 10 months to prepare,” Babayev explained. Azerbaijan only recently chose a venue, Baku’s enormous Olympic stadium, to accommodate the approximately 85,000 people who attend these conferences. “A lot of things, they’re not clear now but I think within this year everything will be more or less clear.”

Babayev stated that his team is currently gathering information, meeting individuals, and developing connections, but has not yet established precise goals for the conference.

But there is one overarching goal: more financial assistance for developing countries to transition to cleaner energy systems and deal with the increased heat, floods, storms, and droughts caused by climate change.

“The agenda is to invite all the donors to at least increase their contribution for developing countries,” he stated. “Because with the climate change there we are daily faced with all these impacts.”

This week, Babayev referred to bright and sticky Washington weather, which was 78 degrees (25.6 degrees Celsius), or 8 degrees (4.4 degrees Celsius) warmer than typical. He stated that Baku is currently experiencing similar temperatures, which are also much above usual. He used Dubai, which hosted last year’s climate conference, as an example of the disastrous flooding that occurred this week, which Kazakhstan and other nations experienced.

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Next UN Climate Talks Are Critical To Plot Aid For Poorer Nations, Says Incoming President

Babayev referred to early February in Baku, when temperatures reached a record 24 degrees Celsius (75 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the previous February high by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit): “That is not natural. It’s not typical.

Babayev, 56, was in Washington for the spring meetings of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other major financial institutions. He and his colleagues were primarily gathering information. Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate secretary, urged those financial institutions this week to make substantial adjustments, including debt relief for poor countries, to combat global warming and its consequences.

But Babayev is looking at another group: the private sector, which includes banks, investment companies, and so on.

“We call on the private sector to be very active and responsible about this and to be ready to not delay with the offers, the proposals for climate finance,” Babayev said a news conference.

Babayev, like the current COP president, Sultan al-Jaber of Dubai, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil business, spent several years working for the Azerbaijani state-owned oil business. Activists and academics have long criticized the oil sector — one of the largest emitters of heat-trapping gases — for its influence in these United Nations negotiations, which increased last year when it was led by an oil executive. However, al Jaber and Babayev claimed their industry ties are more useful in bringing corporations to the table and getting things done.

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Next UN Climate Talks Are Critical To Plot Aid For Poorer Nations, Says Incoming President

Babayev also expressed hope that Baku, where the world’s first oil fields were developed in 1846 and Azerbaijan led the world in oil production in 1899, can demonstrate how this “oil and gas country of the past” can lead the world down a green path by increasing renewable energy, particularly wind power.

However, according to statistics from experts at the Global Carbon Project, Azerbaijan’s carbon dioxide emissions from the use of fossil fuels have increased by 13% over the last decade.

SOURCE – AP