Geopolitical Turmoil Shakes COP29 Climate Summit
Climate COP-out 29 protest, Nov. 13, 2024. X/ @SafeClimate
November 14, 2024 Hour: 1:00 pm
Azerbaijan accused France and the Netherlands of neocolonialism for maintaining overseas territories.
With major conflicts ongoing in Ukraine and Gaza and Donald Trump’s electoral victory in the United States, many negotiators assumed that the geopolitical context of the COP29 climate summit in Baku would be extremely complex.
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However, reality has surpassed fears in the first days of this UN forum, with Argentina’s delegation withdrawing from the negotiations in Baku by order of President Javier Milei, who will soon meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to pursue a free trade agreement between Argentina and the United States.
This unexpected twist caught everyone by surprise, as did the diplomatic conflict between Azerbaijan and France, which led French Ecological Transition Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher to announce that she will not travel to Baku next week for the second round of negotiations, where ministers typically take over from their technical teams to expedite processes.
The dispute began when Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who declared fossil fuels “a gift from God” at the COP29 summit’s opening, accused France and the Netherlands of neocolonialism for maintaining overseas territories.
“The French Polynesia and New Caledonia have been recognized as non-autonomous territories by the United Nations since 1946-1947. However, their decolonization process is still delayed,” said Aliyev, who inherited the presidency 21 years ago from his father in a country that derives almost 50 percent of its GDP from oil and gas.
This statement also reveals a deeper tension, as France is allied with Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh—a disputed territory between the two countries from which thousands of Armenians were forced to flee a year ago, in what Yerevan labeled ethnic cleansing.
The French minister responded in the Senate to Aliyev’s remarks, accusing him of “instrumentalizing the fight against climate change for an unworthy personal agenda” and called it “ironic” that Azerbaijan, with a “repressive, freedom-restricting regime, gives lessons on human rights.”
“Our doors remain open,” said Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Yalchin Rafiyev, who refrained from escalating the controversy and assured that the host country “has ensured that the negotiation process is inclusive.”
From Baku, EU lead negotiator Jacob Werksman stated that “both France and the Netherlands are absolutely essential in the area of climate policy and climate financing.”
In Brussels, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said Aliyev’s comments are unacceptable and risk undermining the COP29’s vital goals. “The EU and its member states are the largest contributors to global climate financing and support partners worldwide in the fight against climate change,” he recalled.
This diplomatic rift has captured media attention on the fourth day of negotiations, which will continue until November 22, though many hope it will not impact the summit’s final outcome. As for Argentina, Milei’s decision is aimed at appealing to Trump, but it likely won’t significantly impact the summit’s outcome since Argentina “was not on the front line” of the negotiations.
Analysts believe Trump will withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, though uncertainty remains over the role of Trump’s advisor, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, the world’s largest electric vehicle company.
A hypothetical U.S. withdrawal from the global agreement is a process that will legally take at least a year, meaning the U.S. would likely still participate in COP30, which will be held next year in Belem, a city in the Brazilian Amazon, marking ten years since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
teleSUR/ JF Source: EFE
