BRUSSELS: Azerbaijan, host of this year’s U.N. climate change talks, hopes to upgrade its emissions reduction target in time for the event, the incoming president of the COP29 summit said on Thursday.
Azerbaijan’s economy relies on oil and gas, and its existingtarget - to cut greenhouse gas emissions 35% by 2030 and 40% by 2050 versus 1990 levels - is far short of the net zero levelscientists say the world must reach by 2050 to avoid the worstimpacts of climate change.
Mukhtar Babayev, minister of ecology and natural resources,said his former Soviet nation had started preparations toconsider updating its national climate change commitment (NDC).
“It is not only a chance for Azerbaijan, but all other countries to prepare and announce the upgraded NDCs in Baku in November this year,” Babayev told a Financial Times conference in London in a recorded interview.
Azerbaijan’s announcement comes as Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, sent a letter to all countries asking them to beef up their national climate plans up to 2035, strengthen their 2030 emissions reduction targets and commit more money for climatefinance.
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“Critically, your NDCs 3.0 (new climate plans) and 2030 targets will collectively determine whether the world can get back on a global emissions trajectory in line with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C this century, as required by science under the Paris Agreement,” he wrote.
Stiell will attend a gathering of countries’ climate ministers in Copenhagen next week.
Test of resolve
Babayev, who previously spent two decades at Azerbaijan’sstate-owed oil and gas firm, did not specify what the amendedtarget would be.
Campaigners and some climate scientists have criticised hisappointment, for continuing a trend of individuals with deepties to the oil and gas industry leading global negotiations tocombat climate change.
Oil and gas account for 91% of Azerbaijan’s exports,according to U.S. data for 2022.
Babayev said Azerbaijan was committed to expand green energysources to a 30% share of the mix by 2030. The country is richin untapped wind and solar resources, but today its energy isnearly entirely produced from fossil fuels.
He said he had begun talks with financial institutions,banks, campaigners and the private sector to lay groundwork fora consensus at the summit on raising more finance to helpdeveloping nations with the energy transition.
The November meeting in Baku will test governments’ appetiteto fight climate change after a bumper year of elections fromthe EU and U.S. to India and South Africa.
COP29 serves as the deadline for countries to agree a newglobal climate finance goal to help poorer nations cope withworsening climate change.
Last year’s COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirateswas led by Sultan Al-Jaber, head of the country’s state-ownedoil firm.
That summit yielded the first global agreement totransition away from fossil fuels but fell short of the fullphase-out more than 100 countries including the EU, U.S. andclimate-vulnerable small island states had sought.