Azerbaijan’s Minister for ecology and natural deposits and previously an executive at state oil business SOCAR Mukhtar Babayev (C) sees at the Norm cement plant in Baku, on February 23,2023 Azerbaijan called on January 5, 2024, Mukhtar Babayev minister to command the November 2024 POLICE OFFICER29 conference, in Baku, on January 6, 2024.
Tofik Babayev|Afp|Getty Images
A previous executive of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company SOCAR has actually been selected to lead U.N. environment talks in Baku later on this year, triggering critics to decry a “bad case of déjà vu.”
Mukhtar Babayev, who works as Azerbaijan’s ecology and natural deposits minister, was named Thursday by the POLICE OFFICER28 United Arab Emirates presidency as the police officer29 president-designate.
Babayev will take over from Sultan Al-Jaber, who was viewed as a questionable option to lead police officer28 talks in Dubai late in 2015 considered that he likewise works as the head of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
It suggests that a minister with large experience in oil and gas will lead settlements at the U.N.’s greatest and crucial yearly environment conference for the 2nd successive year. The POLICE OFFICER29 conference is set up to happen in Baku in November.
Little is learnt about Babayev, although he invested more than 24 years operating at Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR in a range of functions through to April 2018, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Campaign group Global Witness stated Babayev’s visit as the individual to lead police officer29 conversations was a “bad case of déjà vu.”
“We now have a former oil executive from an authoritarian petrostate in charge of the world’s response to the crisis that fossil fuel firms created,” Alice Harrison, nonrenewable fuel sources project leader at Global Witness, stated Friday in a declaration.
“We once again require the [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] to urgently step in and kick huge polluters out of environment talks, to make sure the talks are kept in excellent faith, and to get rid of those individuals who wish to earn a profit at the cost of the world’s most susceptible individuals,” Harrison stated.
Spokespersons for Azerbaijan’s federal government and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change were not instantly readily available to comment when gotten in touch with by CNBC.
Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli (L) fulfills Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Mukhtar Babayev (R) in Baku, Azerbaijan on March 17, 2021.
Anadolu|Anadolu|Getty Images
Separately, Collin Rees of Oil Change International, an advocacy group, described Babayev’s visit as “outrageous” and “deeply worrying.”
“We need a shift away from the business-as-usual threatening lives and wrecking the climate, but Azerbaijan appointing another lifelong oil man to lead the next UN climate talks pushes us closer to the abyss,” Rees stated Friday in a declaration.
Climate financing
U.N. environment chief Simon Stiell welcomed Babayev’s visit, stating in a letter that he hoped the police officer29 president-designate and Azerbaijan Deputy Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, the lead mediator of the talks, would provide a “successful” environment top.
Teresa Anderson, international lead on environment justice at ActionAid International, an advancement charity, stated Monday in response to Babayev’s visit as police officer29 president-in-waiting that the function of any police officer president is to guide world leaders in the best instructions.
“Babayev’s priority, starting today, must be to ensure that the world’s growing appetite for climate action is matched by the necessary funding,” Anderson stated in a declaration.
“COP29 needs to deliver the finance desperately needed to make the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy,” she included.
