Essay by Eric Worrall
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.
By Joe Lo
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.
…
Read more: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2024/01/04/azerbaijan-appoint-state-oil-company-veteran-as-cop29-president/
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;
2024 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29)
Event date
Monday 11 November, 2024 – Sunday 24 November, 2024
Website
2024 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29)
Description
The 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 29) to the UNFCCC will convene from 11 to 24 November 2024. It will take place in Azerbaijan.
…
Read more: https://unhabitat.org/events/2024-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-29
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?
They should hold it in the Vatican. After all, the pope is the leader of a religion.
Good idea, and then why not Iran also, their Ayatollah could claim the same? And Tehran is only about 300 miles from Baku.
Some part of Asia or Eastern Europe was the intended location all along. The Russia invasion of Ukraine caused a holdup in the decision and then a late choice.
It seems you missed this:
Azerbaijani’s lightning offensive in September 2023 took control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Given the decisive military advance, more than 100,000 people fled the mountainous south Caucasus enclave.
The Sept 2023 offensive was basically a continuation of the 2020 war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, with the Azeri’s basically finishing what they started. Virtually the entire population of ethnic Armenians previously in control of the region, roughly 2/3rds of the Nagorno-Karabakh population, have now left, presumably to go to Armenia. The COPfest floor show will be quite entertaining next year.
Thanks John, I did miss that.
Cold and rainy. Excellent choice.
Lots of solar panels there?
Don’t worry. They’ll just run hundreds of space heaters to keep the delegates warm & toasty.
😉
“The development of Azerbaijan’s industry created a demand for fuel and power supplies. All electricity is produced at thermoelectric power stations burning fossil fuels, which have been built throughout the country.”
Well, the COP29 will have to put a stop to that!
(The quote in italics above is from the website for Azerbaijan)
“Well, the COP29 will have to put a stop to that!”
John Kerry’s appearance will be sufficient.
I see where the Republican House of Representatives is going to investigate collusion between John Kerry’s Climate Czar office and environmental groups.
That ought to be interesting.
My local U.S. House representative is floating a bill to cut off funds to John Kerry’s office.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that there has been collusion with environmental activist groups; his stepson, Andre Heinz, is an activist with an environmental group. The only question is just how far did they go in shaping Kerry’s activities and how much influence did that give them into US government.
There are perhaps 30 nations that pretend to be taking Nut Zero seriously, out of 195 nations, and they are where intelligent people would throw a Climate Outrage Party
EU 27 nations
(a few may not care about Nut Zero)
UK
US
Canada
Australia
Japan
My COP29 Scary Slogan Contest Submission
“Scientists say CO2 poisoning causes
82.4% of men to lose their hair”
My COP28 Scary Slogan Submission did not win
“Climate Change Will Kill Your Dog”
I should have started with “Scientists say”
I also sent a suggestion to change the COP name, because most leftists hate cops
I suggested CLAP
C limate
L iars
A nnual
P arty
The final report should be called
The CLAPtrap Report
I like that new name you gave it. Appropriate. Descriptive. Accurate.
Nah you’ve got to make it properly scary, a lot of guys lose their hair anyway.
How about “Scientists say CO2 poisoning causes your balls to shrink”.
Hmmm…, it would be fun to play a baseball game using golf balls….
In 2018, I started reporting that the teeth of those born after 1980 had grown abnormally large from airborne CO2 fertilisation increase. Some commenters used NZ politician Ardern as an example, IIRC.
Geoff S
Proposed COP29 slogan “Be sure to catch the CLAP.”
Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US. I am tired of American money being pissed away on the UN. Stop it!
The job of the UN was supposed to be to prevent a nuclear World War III, not to stop CO2 from rising, most probably due to natural causes anyway.
The image atop this article reminds me of the real thing. About 1976 I took a photo of a scne just like this at City Beach or Huntington Beach, Los Angeles. This one is copied with thanks from this web site under the caption “Huntington Beach in the 1960s was riddled with wooden oil derricks.”Huntington Beach in the 1960s was riddled with wooden oil derricks.”:
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/oil-derricks-california-old-photos/
I cropped it a little to show similarity to my photo, now hard to find amongst the thousands in my files.
https://www.geoffstuff.com/Huntington Beach.jpg
Geoff S
Somthing goes wrong with just about every link.
This should work
Geoff S
Hi Geoff, what an awesome photo. Can we please use it for future articles?
No Eric,
This is part of a photo by others.
Tomorrow I can find my own, original 1976 photo if time permits.
What grabbed me more than the rigs was the littered broken glass. Had it been Palm Beach, Surfers Paradise or Bell’s Beach, there would have been no surfing and a public outcry about the glass.
Geoff S
All good mate, if your photo turns up I’d love to see it.
Eric,
Here are some images as you requested.
I sorted through about 7,000 slides today, to find this one of the derricks with 4 slides to go in the last box.
Explain that in probability theory that I can read on my way to the Casino.
Cheers Geoff S
Goodness I have trouble with image links!
Here we go again.
Geoff S
Well, well, well!
Soon- it’ll all be wind turbines instead. Ten times taller and none of those shore birds!
“Ee, when I were a lad all this used to be wind turbines, row on row of ’em. All gone now, that’s progress fer ya.” sarc
The meeting should be held again in December with the extra condition of no fossil fuelled heating allowed. Write to Guterres.
There is something quaintly appropriate, when the head of the UN is someone called, A Gutter (sic)
You can’t get much lower than that….
The COP conferences are taking place in accordance with the UN system, which means that each continent have their quota of conferences. Europe always host the conference the year after it is in Asia, so COP29 could not possibly be in Saudi Arabia. America is always host after Europa, and so on.
Story tip: This year Russia had issued a veto, stating no EU country would be allowed to host the COP meeting in 2024 due to the EU behaviour after Putin executed his short, victorious
warspecial military operation and since everyone must agree on the host country, Azerbaijan was agreed upon.Since nearly everyone including John Kerry agrees (green lunatic NGOs not included) that the oil industry should contribute to the problem with the hard-to-find climate crisis, most analysts assumed Azerbaijan would appoint a state oil company as leader as the next COP president.
Do you have a link to that Russian veto, jarlgeir?
From the article:
“2024 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 29)
Event date
Monday 11 November, 2024 – Sunday 24 November, 2024”
There will be another Hot Topic for the delegates to discuss: Trump may be elected president before they convene. I bet the Topic will be Hot then!
How delicious would that be! Trump saves Democracy from the Dictatorial Democrats and withdraws the United States from the Climate Agreements again.
The delegates will be scambling then! Where’s my money!, they cry.
It will be interesting here in the UK because rumour has it that the Gen Election will be on Nov 14th, in the middle of the conference . The present govt and its delegate ministers are certain to be thrown out of office and Sir Kneeling Starmer will take over – presumably sending out his delegates and Sunak’s will be bundled ignomiously offstage.
I predict fewer private jets than usual.
It’s Azerbaijan. Kerry may not even bother.
Oh I think he will. Azerbaijan is, apparently, a sex tourism destination very popular with men from Iran, UAE and Kuwait. It’s amazing what you can find out on the internet.
Then Al Gore will be sure to attend.
https://www.local3news.com/massage-therapist-calls-al-gore-crazed-sex-poodle/article_8ba430f7-eb8a-52ac-9792-4c06eef7f24f.html