Host Azerbaijan plans to upgrade climate target

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 existing target - to cut greenhouse gas emissions 35% by 2030 and 40% by 2050 versus 1990 levels - is far short of the net zero level scientists say the world must reach by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Mukhtar Babayev, minister of ecology and natural resources, said his former Soviet nation had started preparations to consider 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.

Babayev, who previously spent two decades at Azerbaijan’s state-owed oil and gas firm, did not specify what the amended target would be.

His appointment has faced criticism from campaigners and some climate scientists, for continuing a trend of those with deep ties to the oil and gas industry leading the world’s negotiations to combat climate change.

The November meeting in Baku will test governments’ appetite to fight climate change after a bumper year of elections from the EU and U.S. to India and South Africa.

In Azerbaijan, oil and gas account for 91% of exports, according to U.S. data for 2022.

Babayev said Azerbaijan was committed to expand green energy sources to a 30% share of the mix by 2030. The country is rich in untapped wind and solar resources, but today its energy is nearly entirely produced from fossil fuels.

He said he had begun talks with financial institutions, banks, campaigners and the private sector to lay groundwork for a consensus at the summit on raising more finance to help developing nations with the energy transition.

COP29 serves as the deadline for countries to agree a new global climate finance goal to help poorer nations cope with worsening climate change.