Image by Arzu Geybullayeva.

The 29th session of the United Nation's flagship climate summit, also known as COP (Conference of Parties), just wrapped up in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku. How did it all begin, how is it progressing, and what's next for the country's civil society now that the spotlight is over? Here's Global Voices’ wrap-up and key takeaways.

How it started

The summit is the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The latter was adopted in 1992. With a near-universal membership of 198 states (197 states and one regional economic integration organization), the convention, through COP, is tasked with reviewing “the national communications and emission inventories submitted by Parties; [and] assess the effects of the measures taken by Parties and the progress made in achieving the ultimate objective of the Convention,” according to UNFCCC website.

Since 1995, COP has been convening once a year with country hosts chosen on a rotating basis among the five recognized UN regions — Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Europe, and other states. An Eastern European country was slotted to host COP in 2024. This year's host was decided in December 2023, after a weeks-long standstill — a consensus must be reached over the next host by every country in the host region — caused as a result of Russia threatening to veto any European Union country’s bid, given the EU's sanctions against Moscow over its war in Ukraine.

The selection of Azerbaijan, although it ended the negotiations standstill over the COP29 host, raised many more questions as yet another major energy-producing country with a dismal track record on human rights and freedoms (following Egypt and UAE) as well as its intentions to keep boosting the use of fossil fuels and lack of clear commitments to curtail emissions, was the host of one of the world's most important climate conferences.

Unsurprisingly, very few notable outcomes were reported during and at the end of COP29.

On climate

Just days ahead of COP29, Global Witness leaked a video showing Azerbaijan's deputy energy minister and COP29’s chief executive, Elnur Soltanov promoting the country’s fossil-fuel interests and the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR). The leaked video was further proof of prior calls, reports and research documents pointing out that the Azerbaijani government was unlikely to offer any real climate change policies on energy efficiency and long-term sustainability. And that COP29 would serve the interests of the state, desperately wanting to be seen as a global player and equal partner and to secure funding for its own energy deals.

Soltanov's promotion of SOCAR and the country's energy prospects also fit into the narrative built ahead of COP29 and expressed by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. The president's remark that the country’s resources were a gift from God while attending the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in April 2024, an annual international climate negotiation hosted by the German Federal Foreign Office, was yet another signal that Azerbaijan had no intention of stopping investing and producing fossil fuels, and that it was set to continue boosting the natural gas exports to Europe.

The boost to climate finance — one of the outcomes that was expected at this year's COP — also failed to meet the expectations. As described by India’s delegate Chandni Raina, the final document was “little more than an optical illusion,” while Nigeria’s envoy, Nkiruka Maduekwe, called it “an insult.” The Climate Action Network Europe described the agreed amount as “breadcrumbs.” At the end of the day, the budget was raised from USD 100 billion (agreed to in 2009) to USD 300 billion a year by 2035 for developing countries. This amount is significantly lower than the more than USD 1 trillion a year that researchers estimate is needed.

The “loss and damage fund,” set up two years ago, also remained underfunded.

Both the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) and the Least Developing Countries blocks walked out of the negotiations on climate finance in protest at the USD 250 billion offered initially. The walkout prompted negotiators to eventually agree on the final amount of USD 300 billion. 

“The world’s wealthiest countries have spent this year’s climate conference bullying lower-income countries into accepting a miserly finance agreement which could saddle them with huge debts. High-income countries and the Azerbaijan presidency are loudly congratulating themselves, but no amount of spin can hide the fact that this agreement is a disaster for the human rights of people and communities on the front line of proliferating climate impacts,” said Ann Harrison, climate justice advisor at Amnesty International.

Some participants and those involved in the negotiations expressed their frustration with the chief negotiator, Azerbaijan's COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev. As per The New York Times, “Instead of rapidly dealing with a number of the smaller issues in play, negotiations moved at a plodding pace and many points of dispute remain unresolved,” reported the paper. During a press conference, Babayev said he, too, was frustrated with negotiations, and placed the responsibility on the parties involved in the process.

Authors Alice C. Hill and Priyanka Mahat wrote in their review for the Council on Foreign Relations: “The conference ended with only modest climate finance goals, failed to deliver on an expected announcement of a new commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and displayed unusually high tensions among nations. The result was deep concern among climate policy activists for the future of climate diplomacy.”

On rights and freedoms

The timing of COP29 marked exactly one year since the government launched a new crackdown against civil society representatives in Azerbaijan. Scores of journalists, political and civic activists, rights defenders and young scholars were handed pretrial detention sentences on bogus charges.

#Climate talks in Baku is about to end, but impunity for crimes against journalists in #Azerbaijan never ends. Sevinj Vagifgizi, Ulvi Hasanli and Mahammad Kekalov from @AbzasMedia were detained on trumped-up charges just 1 year ahead #COP29 for their brave investigative reporting pic.twitter.com/0Vj4qFoHmK

— FreeAbzasMedia (@FreeAbzasMedia) November 21, 2024

During the conference, local courts extended pretrial detentions and dismissed motions by those currently held behind bars to release them under house arrest.

As #Azerbaijan hosts #COP29 (now in its second week), a court in Baku extends the pretrial detention of former diplomat Emin Ibrahimov by another two months. https://t.co/qwfjYe4ckW

— Arzu Geybulla (@arzugeybulla) November 19, 2024

Documentation of torture and ill-treatment in detention and prison facilities was also reported.

🚩URGENT: Journalists from “Abzas Media” – Sevinj Vagifgizi, Nargiz Absalamova, and Elnara Gasimova – have reportedly faced violence in prison.

Family members of “Abzas Media” editor-in-chief Sevinj Vagifgizi, who is being held in Baku Detention Center No. 1, allege she has been… pic.twitter.com/8JuRkLSJhZ

— Ulviyya Ali (@UlviyyaAli) November 17, 2024

Azer Gasimli, political expert and founder of the Political Management Institute, was barred from leaving the country and placed under a travel ban as negotiations over climate finance went on. Gasimli told Meydan TV in an interview that the decision to ban him was political and his future arrest was possible. Scores of Azerbaijani civic activists are expecting further crackdowns now that the COP29 spotlight over the country is over.

During COP29, the Azerbaijani presidency dismissed questions by Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now newscast, on the status of arrested journalists and activists:

We asked a top Azerbaijani official at the #COP29 summit why activists, journalists and government critics were jailed ahead of the U.N. climate talks. https://t.co/xMjqRPw6wp pic.twitter.com/QRSzQfgJlC

— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) November 20, 2024

Arrested civic activist, Imran Aliyev announced he was going on a hunger strike given what he said was his unlawful arrest and the ongoing pretrial detention. Another activist, Nicad Ibrahim, injured himself with a mirror shard in protest of his arrest. An independent economist who was arrested as part of a criminal investigation launched against Abzas Media and Farid Mehralizade penned a letter to the presidential aide and the head of the Department of Foreign Policy Affairs of the Presidential Administration, Hikmat Hajiyev. He dismissed claims during COP29 that there were any political prisoners or that journalists were persecuted for their reporting.

Mehralizade questioned Hajiyev's claims solely based on his personal experience in a pretrial detention facility where he had been threatened over “speaking too much.” “If indeed I am standing accused of my involvement in some alleged large scale financial machinations, what does ‘teaching me a lesson,’ or other threats mean?” wrote Mehralizade in his letter that was published by Azadliq Radio on November 26.

The presence of a vibrant civil society free from any kind of persecution is one of the building blocks of a democracy. In Azerbaijan, where this presence has been gradually sidelined over the years, it has been replaced with government apologists, as well as fake social media accounts and trolls. Ahead of COP29 and during the conference, several reports shed light on inauthentic accounts promoting the Azerbaijan presidency as well as Hajiyev's comments and statements.

It remains to be seen whether the government of Azerbaijan understands that no amount of fake social media engagement and promotional content can cover up the country's climate and human rights record. However, the decades-long experience of shedding light on these violations by domestic and international rights watchdogs is sufficient to conclude that little will change in Azerbaijan now that the spotlight has shifted.