The chief of this year’s UN climate summit has said that the governments that assume power after elections around the world this year will be held to the same climate obligations as their predecessors.
Azerbaijan will host this year’s Cop29 in November, near the end of a crucial year in which most of the global population – from the UK, the EU and the US to India and Russia – will head to the polls.
The US presidential election, which is likely to be a bitter fight with climate a key issue, will be held on 5 November, with Cop29 to take place days later, from 11 to 22 November, in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.
Mukhtar Babayev, has said that even if new administrations are formed, they will face the same need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle global heating, the incoming president of Cop29.
“I don’t think that any election will change the policy of any countries to move forward the consolidation of these issues [on the climate],” Babayev told the Guardian in his first big interview since his appointment in January. “That’s why our target is to use any chance, any communication, with these countries to move this process to positive results and positive outcomes.”
Incoming governments of whatever stripe would still have to cope with the reality of the climate crisis, he said, and the Azerbaijan presidency would hold them to their committments . “I think all countries will follow their obligations, and we will move to this direction,” he said. “I’m optimistic. We will do everything and will do our best to [ensure] all countries move in this direction.”
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Babayev declined to single out any specific states but acknowledged that the US election was “a very interesting process”, while noting that elections were taking place in many countries.
He said: “Until the end of this year, we will work with the current administration. And I think we have a very good chance, to invite all the participants to Baku to discuss the agenda. We’re working with the current administration of the US to at least develop the agenda to work together, to achieve the targets together.”
Azerbaijan has been an oil producer since the 1840s, and is one of the world’s top fossil fuel suppliers. Oil and gas account for 92% of the country’s exports, according to US data, and about two-thirds of the state budget, and the country is planning to increase its gas output by a third in the next decade.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
