Azerbaijan hosts the UN’s 29th climate Conference of the Parties (COP29), from 11 to 22 November, at a critical moment for multilateral efforts to address climate change. Climate impacts are worsening, yet action is inadequate to the scale of the crisis. Most urgently, vastly more money – in the trillions of dollars – must be mobilized to support developing countries’ climate responses. Delivering an agreement on increased climate financing is the key task for COP29, and for Azerbaijan in guiding the summit’s negotiations.
This paper assesses Azerbaijan’s prospects for brokering a meaningful summit outcome, and for contributing to a wider schedule of climate and environmental responsibilities over the next two years, including as a member of the COP ‘Troika’ (with the UAE and Brazil) and as host of World Environment Day in 2026. The country’s fossil fuel-dependent economy and inexperience in environmental action suggest it will struggle to provide credible leadership. An authoritarian political culture resistant to critical scrutiny is also at odds with the principles of transparency and inclusion underpinning the UN system. More positively, there is potential for Azerbaijan to engage other oil and gas producers constructively around the dilemmas of the energy transition.
