Azerbaijan is the host of the UN's climate conference, shining a spotlight on the petrostate

The spotlight is on Azerbaijan as the small petrostate in the South Caucasus hosts the U.N.’s biggest climate conference.

Diplomats from across the world will descend on the capital Baku for the annual climate summit, known as COP29, to discuss how to avoid increasing threats from climate change in a place that was one of the birthplaces of the oil industry.

It was in Baku where the world’s first oil fields were developed  in 1846 and where Azerbaijan led the world in oil production in 1899.

Sandwiched between Iran to the south and Russia to the north, Azerbaijan is on the Caspian Sea and was part of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1991. Nearly all of Azerbaijan’s exports are oil and gas, two of the world’s leading sources of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions. President Ilham Aliyev described them in April as a “gift of the gods.”

Aliyev is Azerbaijan’s authoritarian leader. He is the son of the former president and has been in power for more than two decades, overseeing a crackdown on freedom of speech and civil society. The Associated Press was not granted permission by Azerbaijan's authorities to report in the country ahead of the conference.

Aliyev has said it is a “big honor” for Azerbaijan to host the conference. He has also said he wants his country to use more renewable energy at home is so that it can export more oil and gas abroad.

In Baku, the signs of fossil fuel addiction are everywhere

In metal cages next to Azerbaijan’s Aquatic Palace sporting venue are pumpjacks — a sign says they extract just over 2 tons of oil a day. Others pump away elsewhere, sucking up oil in view of one of Baku’s religious and tourist sites, the Bibi Heybat mosque that was rebuilt in the 1990s after it was destroyed by the Bolsheviks almost 80 years ago.

Aliyev said he considers it “a sign of respect” from the international community that Azerbaijan is hosting COP and a recognition of what Azerbaijan is doing around green energy.

Some of those plans involve developing hydropower, solar and wind projects in Karabakh, a region populated by ethnic Armenians who fled to Armenia after a lightning military offensive by Azerbaijan in September 2023.

Aliyev said in a speech in March that his country is in the “active phase of green transition” but added that “no one can ignore the fact that without fossil fuel, the world cannot develop, at least in the foreseeable future.”

Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s environment minister and former vice president at the state energy company Socar, will serve as conference president of the talks. Babayev said in April he wants to show how this “oil and gas country of the past” can show the world a green path with its efforts to ramp up renewable energy, especially wind power.

He said he believes his country’s COP summit must build on  last year’s agreement  to transition away from fossil fuels and pave the way for countries to come together in 2025 on beefed-up and financed plans to clamp down on heat-trapping gases.

But plenty of people doubt those commitments.

Multiple organizations say Azerbaijan’s commitment to the green energy transition amounts to greenwashing – giving the impression that the country is doing more than it is to combat climate change.

Claims of greenwashing and civil society crackdowns abound

While many countries including the United States and the United Arab Emirates — last year’s host — grapple with the challenges of transitioning away from fossil fuels, Azerbaijan has historically not been proactive in that regard, said Kate Watters, executive director at Crude Accountability, which monitors environmental issues in the Caspian Sea region.

Environmental monitoring in Azerbaijan is dangerous, she said, referencing a crackdown on civil society that has effectively snuffed out any real opposition and seen people detained.

There's no effective mechanism in Azerbaijan for locals to ring alarm bells about exposure to pollutants from the oil and gas industry, Watters said. She referenced health issues such as rashes and sickness that residents may experience living near the Sangachal oil and gas terminal just outside Baku but indicated that their concerns are not heard.

Azerbaijani government officials did not respond to numerous requests from The Associated Press for comment.

Babayev has pointed to Azerbaijan experiencing higher-than-normal temperatures and said he wants states to come together to improve plans to stop the emission of gases that contribute to global warming. But his country has been criticized for failing to clamp down on exactly that.

Analysis from Global Witness, a nonprofit organization, found the volume of gas flared at oil and gas facilities in Azerbaijan increased by 10.5% since 2018.

Gas flaring is a major source of soot, carbon dioxide and methane emissions that contribute to global warming. It happens when energy companies burn off excess gas instead of capturing it when it's released while drilling for oil. It's been blamed by human rights groups and investigative journalists for some of Azerbaijanis' health issues, including around the Sangachal terminal.

“We’re heading into a COP where even the host isn’t bothering to do the basic functions of climate diplomacy,” Louis Wilson, head of fossil fuels investigations at Global Witness, told AP.

The Paris climate agreement requires countries to submit plans to combat climate change, with Azerbaijan's latest update coming in 2023. A group of climate scientists rated it “critically insufficient” in September. It's expected the country will submit an updated plan this year.

Amid war, Europe turns to Azerbaijan for gas

Azerbaijan owns one of the largest gas fields in the world, Shah Deniz, and BP announced in April the start of oil production from a new offshore platform also in the Caspian Sea.

Baku is planning to hike its fossil fuel production over the next decade and its natural resources have transformed it into a geopolitical player.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Moscow supplied some of 40% of Europe’s natural gas through four pipelines but most of that was later cut off.

That meant opportunity for Azerbaijan, with the EU striking a deal later that year to double its imports of Azeri gas to 20 billion cubic meters a year by 2027. But there are questions as to whether Azerbaijan can meet that demand and disagreements over the terms of the deal.

“The more renewable sources we have, the more natural gas we will save,” Aliyev said in March, noting the fuel saved will be “an additional contribution to the Southern Gas Corridor,” which takes gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

Azerbaijani officials have argued that it is unfair to criticize Baku for producing more fossil fuels when there is a demand for them across Europe as national governments endeavor to keep fuel prices low for citizens.

Azerbaijan’s hosting of COP will turn the spotlight on the nation which makes most of its money from selling fossil fuels but it may also highlight Europe’s — and the world's — continuing dependence on them.

For many climate experts, the question for Azerbaijan is whether the country that saw the beginnings of the fossil fuel industry is serious about hosting negotiations focused on moving the world toward green energy.