For the second year in a row, an oilman will chair the UN Climate Change Conference after Azerbaijan appointed its Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev, formerly an employee of the Socar oil company, as president of COP29, which will be held in Baku in November.
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In their initial reactions, NGOs showed signs of concern and said they hoped the results of COP28 would be strengthened.
“His Excellency Mukhtar Babayev has been appointed president-elect of the 29th session of the Conference of Parties,” Rashad Allahverdiyev, a ministry official, wrote to AFP on Friday.
Last year, the United Arab Emirates, host of COP28, elected Sultan Al Jaber, the head of the national company Adnoc, as chairman of the UN conference, which ended in Dubai in December with calls for a “transition” away from fossil fuels the first time a COP has launched such a call.
The outgoing COP28 presidency also congratulated Mr. Babayev, who was in Dubai. Most recently, he worked at Socar as Vice President of Ecology.
“With another oil state hosting the COP, our concerns multiply,” reacted Harjeet Singh on the anti-fossil fuel treaty initiative. “Despite Mukhtar Babayev’s ties to the oil and gas sector, as president of COP29 he must go beyond the interests of the powerful fossil fuel industry.”
Alice Harrison of the NGO Global Witness, which denounces oil lobbying at the COPs, expressed a “sense of déjà vu” with a “former oil official from an authoritarian petrostate…”
The largest network of NGOs at UN conferences, the Climate Action Network, called for it more soberly to “strengthen the outcome of COP28 on the transition from fossil fuels and in particular to finance this transition in developing countries, a key priority of COP29,” said Tasneem Essop, director of the network.
16 years at Socar
COP presidents have no decision-making power, but are crucial in driving negotiations and proposing compromises.
The COPs are organized in a different zone every year and the host countries are chosen by consensus among the countries in the zone. In 2023, Asian countries nominated the Emirates, and this year, after months of blockade, Azerbaijan was nominated by Eastern European countries, which include Russia.
Mukhtar Babayev worked in the Foreign Economic Relations Department of Socar (State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan) from 1994 to 2003, before moving to the Marketing and Economic Operations Department and becoming Vice President for Ecology (2007–2010).
He has been a minister since 2018.
According to an American diplomatic cable published on Wikileaks and found by the Climate Change News website, Mr. Babayev had told the US ambassador that his mission was to “change Socar's attitude to the environment” while “developing” its mission “Maintain Azerbaijan’s hydrocarbon resources.”
He then allegedly joked about being “enemies” with Socar’s vice president in charge of oil production.
In 2023, Sultan Al Jaber, who previously represented his country at the COPs, retained his position at Adnoc and the Emirati renewable energy company Masdar.
His varied assignments have been criticized for the risk of conflicts of interest, and documents showed that mixed genders were involved in preparing meetings with foreign governments.
The landscape of the next COP will be reminiscent of the Emirates.
Baku was one of the world's oil capitals at the beginning of the 20th century, Francis Perrin, energy specialist at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations, tells AFP. The country has been developing large oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea since the 1990s, he continues.
Today, gas has become more important for Azerbaijan, a member of OPEC+, than oil, which is mainly exported to Europe.
“The country today is still heavily dependent on hydrocarbons, which account for just under 50% of its GDP, just over 50% of its budget revenues and just over 90% of its export earnings,” adds Francis.
The Azerbaijani government also appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev as chief negotiator for COP29.