An Ecology Minister With an Oil Pedigree Will Lead Global Climate Talks

An Ecology Minister With an Oil Pedigree Will Lead Global Climate Talks - The New York Times

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An Ecology Minister With an Oil Pedigree Will Lead Global Climate Talks

Mukhtar Babayev has been appointed to preside over this year’s global climate talks in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources, who occupies a relatively obscure position in the country’s authoritarian government, was appointed president of the annual United Nations-sponsored climate summit that will be held in the country in November. The announcement thrusts him into a role defined by the intense pressure of brokering negotiations on one of the most complex crises to ever face humanity.

Before his ministerial appointment, Mukhtar Babayev, 56, worked for more than a quarter century at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state oil company. Last year’s climate summit, which was held in the United Arab Emirates, was presided over by Sultan Al Jaber, who also leads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Al Jaber’s appointment was roundly criticized by climate activists. However, after the summit concluded in late 2023, many acknowledged that his ability to corral fossil-fuel-producing countries like his own helped yield an agreement that, for the first time in the three-decade history of the talks, saw countries pledge to “transition away” from fossil fuels by midcentury while aiming to triple renewable-energy capacity by 2030.

Mr. Babayev’s oil-industry role at Socar was much more modest than Al Jaber’s and was nominally climate-oriented: He most recently was the company’s vice president for ecology, where he was in charge of efforts to limit Socar’s environmental impact.

Azerbaijan gets roughly two-thirds of its income from fossil fuels, the burning of which is the main driver of greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. The country, sandwiched between Russia and Iran on the Caspian Sea, has vast offshore oil and gas reserves and is a member of OPEC, the global oil cartel.

Since Europe has imposed sanctions on Russian gas, the bloc has become more reliant on Azerbaijani supplies, which reach the continent via pipelines through Turkey, Greece and Italy. European and Azerbaijani officials are deciding whether to double the amount of gas coming through that pipeline this year.

Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Since 1993, fossil fuel revenues have helped a father-son duo of authoritarian presidents, Heydar Aliyev and Ilham Aliyev, turn the country into a petrostate in the mold of the Gulf emirates. The country’s capital, Baku, has a gleaming skyline, though most of Azerbaijan’s 10 million citizens live on relatively modest incomes.

Presidents of U.N. climate summits are generally expected to shepherd diplomats from nearly 200 countries toward an agreement that, while nonbinding, sends a strong signal to governments and markets by establishing consensus on collective efforts to combat climate change.

“The role of the COP29 president is critically important,” said David King, founder of Climate Crisis Advisory Group, an independent group of scientists. “It’s the difference between simply adding to the statements from preceding presidencies, and finally translating talk into the action desperately needed. The appointment of an ex-oil exec as COP29 president, whilst disappointing, is both unsurprising and inevitable given Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel dependency.”

Mr. Babayev didn’t respond to a request for comment on how he plans to approach the role.

Azerbaijan became the host of this year’s climate conference, known as COP29, through a long and difficult process stymied in large part by Russian obstruction.

The conference takes place in a different region every year, and this year’s was meant to be held in Eastern Europe or the Caucasus. Because the host must be agreed upon by each of the region’s member states, Russia was able to essentially veto any candidate that opposed its war in Ukraine.

Eventually, the candidate pool was whittled down to Armenia and Azerbaijan, which had been fighting their own war, against each other, until last year. Azerbaijan, the victor in the war, reached an agreement with Armenia that, in exchange for prisoners of war, Armenia would drop its opposition to Azerbaijan’s COP29 hosting bid.

This year’s summit is meant to focus on the thorny issue of what the world’s richer countries, which are responsible for most of the historical emissions that have caused climate change, owe to poorer ones, which are disproportionately suffering from its effects.

Max Bearak is a Times reporter who writes about global energy and climate policies and new approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More about Max Bearak

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