July will be a month of records. Athletes and spectators gather for the Paris Olympics to celebrate feats of human endurance and record-breaking achievement. But July is also seeing records of another kind breaking.

This month we experienced the hottest day ever in over 120,000 years meaning global temperatures are now the highest they have ever been as a result of climate change caused by burning coal, oil and gas, and deforestation. 

This also means real-world impacts – every day, every hour and every minute. Just in the past few weeks, Hurricane Beryl destroyed parts of the Caribbean, a heatwave caused power outages in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and there were severe floods in Kenya. 

In just four months, Azerbaijan will be in the global spotlight for two weeks when it will be responsible for spearheading UN climate talks in Baku. Government, businesses, media and civil society are anxious to know what the COP29 Presidency has been doing to shift the gears on diplomacy and ramp up global ambition. 

COP29 priorities

In its recent Letter to Parties, the COP29 Presidency outlined some of its processes leading to Baku. It said its two pillars are to “Enhance Ambition, Enable Action”.  It has pursued a raft of initiatives, but these will not pave the way for the systems change that is required.

The task at hand is clear.

First, we need a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. Second, we need a strong climate finance goal to deliver on this. Third, we need countries to submit ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that respond to the Global Stocktake and robustly adhere to the science. 

Comment: A global wealth tax is needed to help fund a just green transition

The COP29 Presidency has a crucial strategic role to play in building pressure on countries to demonstrate what they are doing to meet all these commitments. Finding the landing ground on these pillars cannot wait until November. The real work is done in the months and weeks before the summit.

Let’s not forget that the COP28 deal was meant to mark the “beginning of the end” of the fossil fuel era. Yet, progress on this since the Dubai summit has been woefully slow. The window for a 1.5℃ future is closing fast and Azerbaijan, a significant fossil exporter itself, cannot ignore the root cause of the problem.

Finance deal

Similarly, we must avert a failure to agree to the new climate finance goal in Baku.

The Presidency says negotiating a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) is their priority. If that’s the case, then the clock is ticking. Effectively leading these finance talks will require proactive steps and a recognition of the scale of financing required. At least $1 trillion of investment is needed for climate and environment by 2030.

Azerbaijan’s proposal for a  Climate Finance Action Fund (yet another fund with insufficient money!) would rightly mean a mechanism through which polluters do finally pay. However, this cannot be used as an excuse for countries to continue with fossil fuel expansion.

UAE’s ALTÉRRA invests in fund backing fossil gas despite “climate solutions” pledge

The recent appointment of Denmark’s Dan Jørgensen and Egypt’s Yasmine Fouad as a Ministerial Pairing for the finance deal is welcome.

But in addition to their support, there has to be political will for system change. There must be alignment on areas of agreement and expectations. Balancing the needs and demands of 190+ countries is challenging. But by engaging with champions from business, government and civil society across the board it can be done.

Civil society engagement

Azerbaijan does not need to reinvent the wheel with shiny new deals. Creating the enabling conditions and encouraging countries to implement existing commitments can have the greatest impact on tackling the climate crisis. 

Azerbaijan will benefit from continuing to engage tirelessly with credible actors who can help it avoid pitfalls and needless mistakes. Sporadic consultations will not suffice; consistent dialogue is key.

Lastly, Azerbaijan should be prepared for intense scrutiny from the media and civil society.

In the coming weeks and months, it must engage openly and transparently with those who will question its actions and motives. They must avoid increasing distrust in the process. They must directly address concerns over the COP being co-opted by fossil fuel interests as well as reports that it is intensifying a crackdown on civil society. 

Azerbaijan’s role as the host of COP29 places it in a position of significant responsibility and opportunity not only to advance the negotiations but build a legacy for the climate regime and future generations. Setting clear timelines, leveraging expert advice, intensifying finance talks and keeping pressure on countries to deliver can all result in a successful COP.

The post It’s time for Azerbaijan to shift gears on diplomacy ahead of COP29 appeared first on Climate Home News.

This is Azerbaijan’s first large-scale solar power plant. It opened last October and the Emirati company developing it, Masdar, says it can power 110,000 homes.

Climate Home visited the solar park as part of a media tour organised and sponsored by the Azerbaijan COP29 Presidency, which is arranging the UN climate summit in Baku this November.

At the park’s opening ceremony, in front of Sultan Al-Jaber – Masdar’s CEO who led the COP28 climate summit in Dubai – Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev boasted about his country’s determination in “moving towards a green agenda”. 

“This is our contribution not only to the future development of Azerbaijan but to the issues related to climate change,” he told the assembled dignitaries. 

But despite this rhetoric, climate scientists have questioned Azerbaijan’s climate credentials as it prepares to host the COP29 summit. 

An increase in renewable energy production does not mean Azerbaijan is planning to leave its vast oil and gas reserves in the ground. Aliyev said last month that Azerbaijan will try to sell abroad the gas it saves by not using it in power stations at home. Europe is the main target customer, as it shifts away from Russian gas supplies.

In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s net zero vision clashes with legacy of war

On top of selling its surplus, Azerbaijan is planning to extract more gas thanks, in part, to fresh investments from foreign fossil fuel giants like Britain’s BP, France’s TotalEnergies and Emirati oil giant ADNOC, which Al-Jaber also heads. 

Bill Hare, CEO of climate science non-profit group Climate Analytics, called Azerbaijan’s plans “a fantasy”. “Ramping up renewables won’t make a dent in emissions unless they displace fossil fuels in the system,” he told Climate Home. “You can’t tackle climate change without getting rid of fossil fuels.” 

A spokesperson for COP29 said gas is “an ideal transition fuel in the production of electricity”. In emailed comments, they added that gas exported to Europe can replace coal power – which currently provides around 15% of the EU’s electricity – in the short to medium-term, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Azerbaijan is not alone in pursuing both renewable energy and fossil fuel production. Most fossil fuel producers – including wealthy nations like the US, UK and Canada – have no plans to stop producing oil and gas. That’s despite the International Energy Agency (IEA) warning that new fossil fuel extraction projects are not compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

The COP29 spokesperson said Azerbaijan’s strategy does not contradict IEA scenarios, noting those do not exclude continued investment in existing oil and gas assets and approved projects.

A fossil fuel economy

Azerbaijan’s fossil fuel industry is steeped in history. As early as the 13th century, Italian explorer Marco Polo wrote of Baku’s “stream of oil in such abundance that a hundred ships may load there at once”. 

In the 19th century, Azerbaijan gave birth to modern crude refining, and by the 20th century it accounted for around half of the world’s oil production, helping fuel the Soviet Union’s victory in World War Two.

Oil and gas remain omnipresent today. The Flame Towers, Baku’s iconic skyscrapers, are a symbol of fossil fuel wealth. At night, their facades light up to display flickering flames in a reference to the naturally-occurring fires produced by gas leaks that earned Azerbaijan its name, “The Land of Fire”. 

The logo of SOCAR, the state-owned oil and gas firm, emblazons the national football team shirts, while one of the country’s oldest oil fields sits just behind Baku’s Olympic Stadium, the venue for the COP29 climate summit. 

Oil fields on the outskirts of Baku, Azerbaijan, April 2o24. Photo: Matteo Civillini

By global standards, Azerbaijan is no longer a major fossil fuel producer, pumping less than 1% of the world’s oil and gas. But its economy remains heavily dependent on the income they generate. Fossil fuels make up over 90% of all exports and 64% of government revenue.

At the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin last month, Aliyev said that “having oil and gas deposits is not our fault. It’s a gift from God. We must not be judged by that. He added that “our oil and gas will be needed for many more years, including in European markets”.

A shrinking market?

European countries have historically been the main destination market for Azerbaijani oil and gas, and flows have been rising in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

As Europe tried to wean itself off Moscow’s supplies, the European Commission went looking around the world for alternative sources of gas to keep the lights on and curb skyrocketing prices. In Azerbaijan, it struck a new deal to double gas exports by 2027. 

Baku is now scrambling to make good on that pact, while using it as a lever to expand its lucrative gas industry. The country could boost its gas production by more than a third over the next decade, according to data analysis by campaigning group Global Witness. 

“We are largely investing in increasing our gas production,” said Aliyev in Berlin, “because Europe needs more gas from new sources.” 

But energy experts question that reasoning. While looking for new gas supplies in the short term, the war in Ukraine also prompted the EU to fast-track its transition towards renewable sources of energy. Its strategic energy plan, laid out in 2022, would see overall gas demand in the bloc halve by 2030. 

“There will be a lot of supply globally and not that much demand on the European side,” said E3G analyst Maria Pastukhova. “Looking at the amounts alone, the EU will not need any additional gas from Azerbaijan if it delivers on its energy transition policies.”

Clean, cheap or fair – which countries should pump the last oil and gas?

But much will also depend on what kind of gas the block will continue to rely on. Norway, Europe’s top supplier, Algeria and Azerbaijan provide it through pipelines, while the United States and Qatar ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the continent. 

“It’s hard to say at the moment [which supplies will remain],” added Pastukhova. “But it isn’t very likely that Azerbaijan can continue to bank on crazy gas revenues from the EU. We don’t see readiness from European buyers to sign long-term contracts beyond 2035.” 

Sell, don’t burn

Meanwhile, Baku also wants to ensure that its gas is channelled towards the lucrative export market not burned at home.

Central to this strategy is the rollout of renewable energy. With strong winds blowing from the Caspian Sea and sun shining for a large part of the year, Azerbaijan boasts significant clean energy prospects.

But that potential has so far been largely untapped. Renewable sources, mainly from three hydro power stations, produced only 7% of Azerbaijan’s electricity in 2023. The government wants to increase that to 30% by 2030. 

If that target is met, Aliyev says that solar and wind will pump 5 gigawatts of clean electricity into the national grid, freeing up “at least” 5 billion cubic metres of gas for the European market.

At Masdar’s sprawling solar park in Garadagh, this plan is being rolled out. The park spans the equivalent of 770 football pitches, but was built in just under two years. It cost $262 million, with multilateral development banks stumping up just under half of that.

Speaking to journalists inside the plant’s control room, Kamran Huseynov, deputy director of the Azerbaijan Renewable Energy Agency, said eight more solar and wind projects are being developed for the coming years. “We are quite sure we can reach the target [of 30% renewables capacity] by 2028,” he added. 

As in Garadagh, foreign energy companies will be at the helm of those eight projects. Masdar will build two more solar parks and one onshore wind farm. Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power is erecting a wind farm just north of Baku by the Caspian Sea.

Renewables-processed fossil fuels?

Later this year, BP is expected to start building a solar farm in the district of Jabrayil. This is one of the territories Azerbaijan captured after a long-running dispute with Armenia centred on the Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

Baku seized control of these areas in a two-part military offensive that started in 2020 and ended last autumn. As a result, some 136,000 ethnic Armenians who had lived in Nagorno-Karabakh fled in a mass exodus which, according to Armenia and the EU Parliament, amounted to “ethnic cleansing”. Azerbaijan has rejected those accusations. 

In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s net zero vision clashes with legacy of war

The Azeri government is now promoting a green vision for Nagorno-Karabakh which involves the construction of government-branded “net zero” villages. It has also designated the region as a “green energy zone”, aiming to attract investment in renewable energy.

BP was the first major international energy firm to jump at that opportunity. In 2022, the company’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, praised Baku’s efforts to turn Karabakh into “the heart of sustainable development”. 

BP wants electricity produced from Jabrayil’s solar power plant to make some of its vast oil and gas operations in Azerbaijan less dirty.

The British energy giant runs the Sangachal terminal, one of the world’s largest oil and gas processing facilities and the starting point for the pipelines transporting gas to Europe. Processing all of this oil and gas requires power, which BP currently gets from burning gas in generators.

The Sangachal oil and gas terminal in Azerbaijan. Photo: Azerbaijan Presidency

According to Elnur Soltanov, Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister and the COP29 CEO, these are “very inefficient” and produce “some of the dirtiest electricity” in the country. After being electrified, the fossil fuel processing plant will receive the same amount of electricity from the grid as the solar park generates, according to Azernenerji, the country’s grid operator.

The process will also free up “more gas to export to world markets”, BP says.

BP’s project is being developed in partnership with SOCAR, Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas giant. After setting up a “green energy” unit last year, SOCAR says it is working with international companies, like BP, “in order to get the know-how” and “learn in the process” with the goal of transforming into a “comprehensive energy company”.  

“Sooner or later, hydrocarbons will slowly die out – not right away,” Teymur Guliyev, deputy vice president for the energy transition at SOCAR, told reporters including Climate Home. “But we have to start our transformation process when we still have plenty of time to plan accordingly, go through trial and error.” 

The COP29 spokesperson said Azerbaijan “is making significant progress” towards reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, Azerbaijan has a goal to reduce emissions 40% by 2050 as outlined in its national climate plan (NDC). It has promised to submit a new NDC that is aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5C, which is due by early 2025.

How to move it

While the current priority for Azerbaijan’s renewables push appears to be maximising its gas exports, the government is also wrangling over how to sell its clean energy to Europe, when gas demand falls.

COP29’s Soltanov told Climate Home and other international journalists that he is “very optimistic” about Azerbaijan’s green transition. “Azerbaijan has been at the forefront of the oil revolution, it has been at the forefront of the gas revolution, and it has all the conditions to be at the forefront of the clean energy revolution as well,” he added. 

But the transportation of green electricity remains an obstacle.

The main option being explored is laying an electric cable under the Black Sea, stretching over 1,155 kilometres between Georgia and Romania. Originally the project, under discussion for several years, had the stated intention of linking Georgia to the European transmission network and boosting its energy security. 

But it was recently revamped as a possible route to carry Azerbaijan’s clean energy to the European market. In December 2022, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary formed a partnership to push the project forward, indicating it could be completed by 2029 at a cost of €2.3bn ($2.5bn). A two-year long feasibility study is currently in its final stage, according to President Aliyev. 

The leaders of Azerbaijan, Romania, Hungary and Georgia, and the European Commission President, at the signing of a green energy partnership in December 2022. (Photo: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea via Reuters)

Implementing the project could be challenging given the fragile geopolitical situation in the region. The cable would run just south of the Crimean Peninsula, under Russian control, and near a theatre of war in Ukraine with the strong presence of military vessels. 

For Climate Analytics’ Bill Hare, “it’s a tricky location to attract investment and get built at the moment, but it would provide a lot of benefits in the long-term”. 

There are also questions over whether Azerbaijan’s current plans to export green energy via the Black Sea cable will yield a high-enough return to compensate for selling less fossil fuel.

“Electricity trade is a stable source of revenue, but it is also capital-intensive and not very high margin,” explained E3G’s Pastukhova. “It will not replace the same amount of export revenue that gas and oil have been contributing.”

“What Azerbaijan is doing right now [on renewables] is not enough and quite alarming because this country is so dependent on oil and gas revenue,” she said.

(Reporting by Matteo Civillini in Azerbaijan; editing by Megan Rowling and Joe Lo)

Matteo Civillini visited Azerbaijan as part of an “energy media tour” organised and sponsored by the COP29 Presidency.

The article was updated on 17 May to include comments from a COP29 spokesperson received after publication. 

The post Azerbaijan pursues clean energy to export more ‘god-given’ gas to Europe appeared first on Climate Home News.

Aghali is a pioneering example of Azerbaijan’s plan for “green” reconstruction of the territories it captured after a long, bloody conflict with Armenia, centred on the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh mountainous enclave.

Hundreds of Azeris displaced from the region in the early 1990s have moved back to Aghali, a local government official told Climate Home.

“The emotional link to these territories is very strong even though 30 years have passed,” the official said. “Our people are happy to be back”.

The government says more than 100,000 Azeris will return to populate the 30 or so new towns and villages planned across the area by 2026, which are expected to run mainly on clean energy and aim for “net zero” emissions.

Yet a more troubled story lies beneath the shiny surface presented by the authorities – part of Azerbaijan’s efforts to polish its green credentials before the COP29 UN climate summit it will host in November.

Some 136,000 ethnic Armenians who had called Nagorno-Karabakh their homeland fled in a mass exodus during a two-part military offensive by Azerbaijan that started in 2020 and ended last autumn.

For Armenian authorities and some human rights and legal experts, the drive amounted to “ethnic cleansing” – a phrase used in a European Parliament resolution on the conflict. A spokesperson for COP29 told Climate Home the Azerbaijan authorities “categorically reject this view”.

With the fighting now over, the two sides are engaged in talks to build a lasting peace. They struck an initial agreement to establish border demarcations in April, but hopes of a swift breakthrough on a permanent solution remain slim.

Meanwhile, displaced Armenians have said publicly they fear the heritage sites and homes they hastily left behind will be erased under a giant construction effort. Evidence of this was seen last month by Climate Home on a press trip organised and sponsored by the COP29 Presidency team, which controlled access to locations and sources in the region.

‘Net zero’ vision

Azerbaijan has built its prowess, both on and off the battlefield, on the strength of its vast oil and gas reserves. Around 60 percent of the government’s budget is financed through the sale of fossil fuels, primarily via export to Europe.

Last month, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called oil and gas “a gift from God” at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, signalling continued investment in increased gas production. That is despite signing up, like all countries, to a global agreement to transition away from fossil fuels “in keeping with the science” at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai last December.

Nonetheless, as its capital Baku gears up to host COP29, Azerbaijan also wants to show off its efforts to adopt clean energy and cut planet-heating emissions to the outside world.

Nagorno-Karabakh, and the surrounding provinces, lie at the centre of this push. The government has declared a “green energy zone” here, adding a dozen hydropower plants, and seeking to attract foreign investment in solar and wind.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev in front of a screw turbine hydro power plant in Zangilan, one of the territories recaptured in 2020. Photo: Azerbaijan Presidency

Across the country, the government wants renewables to make up 30 percent of its installed electricity capacity by 2030 – up from 7 percent in 2023. The main motivation is to reduce the use of gas in its own power stations so that more of it can be shipped to Europe, President Aliyev said during an event at ADA University in Baku in April.

Azerbaijan is also planning to achieve “net zero” carbon emissions in Karabakh by 2050, as outlined in its latest national climate action plan (NDC) submitted under the UN climate process. It says that “to revitalise the territories liberated from occupation”, the government will establish “smart” settlements, promote “green” energy zones, agriculture and transport, and reforest “thousands of hectares”.

For Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia programme at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “it’s greenwashing of an ethnic cleansing, pure and simple”.

“Azerbaijan is putting a stamp on the territory as a way to legitimise the conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh and doing so under the pretence of helping fight climate change,” she told Climate Home.

The COP29 spokesperson said in emailed comments that this view “has no basis in fact”, adding that Azerbaijan is rebuilding houses for its citizens who were internally displaced during the conflict, “according to UN sustainability standards”.

Disputed territory

Territorial disputes over the Nagorno-Karabakh region have a long and complex history.

“Azerbaijan and Armenia – both are convinced this is historic patrimony of their people,” said Audrey Altstadt, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who specialises in Azerbaijan.

As the Soviet Union set about governing its far-flung provinces in the 1920s, then Commissar of Nationalities, Joseph Stalin, ruled that the region should be part of Soviet Azerbaijan, even though ethnic Armenians made up 94% of its population at the time.

In the 1980s, alongside the fall of the Soviet Union, tensions began to rise after Nagorno-Karabakh’s governing authorities declared their intention to join Armenia and Azerbaijan reacted by attempting to suppress separatists.

After the two sides gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, clashes between them escalated into an all-out war.

By the time fighting stopped three years later, Azerbaijan had suffered a crushing defeat, losing not just Nagorno-Karabakh but also a sizable chunk of territory around it. Ethnic Armenians declared a separatist republic in the region with the backing of Armenia.

Evolution of territorial control over Nagorno-Karabakh, and surrounding districts, from the aftermath of the 1994 war until today. Graphic: Fanis Kollias

Some 870,000 Azeris abandoned their homes in the captured area and Armenia itself, while around 300,000 ethnic Armenians fled Azerbaijan, according to the United Nations’ refugee agency.

For 15 years the conflict remained frozen, while international actors – led by the United States, France and Russia – tried, and failed, to find a peaceful resolution.  

Azerbaijan’s autocratic president, Aliyev, took matters into his own hands in September 2020, mounting a large-scale military offensive on Nagorno-Karabakh. Powered by more sophisticated weaponry, and backed by Türkiye, Azeri forces prevailed during a 44-day war that claimed the lives of at least 7,000 people – including over 100 civilians. 

Under a ceasefire agreement signed in November 2020, Azerbaijan gained a significant proportion of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the coveted town of Shushi – called Shusha by Azeris – as well as winning control of adjacent districts. 

Soon afterwards, Baku announced a colossal programme to rebuild and repopulate the region, establishing “green energy zones” in Nagorno-Karabakh and East Zangezur. 

Rebuilding ‘from scratch’

Deep behind a string of police checkpoints, the plan is proceeding apace. It includes Aghali, one of the “smart” villages created by the government to accommodate Azeri citizens displaced from the area three decades ago.

“Everything we build here, starting from houses to schools, is based on the element of solar,” said Vahid Hajiyev, special representative of the Azerbaijan presidency in Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan districts, addressing a group of international reporters.

“The whole area had been devastated,” added Hajiyev, saying it was largely abandoned and littered with mines after Armenia captured it. “We’re doing everything from scratch and that gives an opportunity to do it right.”

A view of Aghali, a “smart” village created by the Azerbaijani government in the territories retaken from Armenia, in April 2024. Photo: Matteo Civillini

A nearby screw hydro turbine provides electricity for the whole village, while homes are equipped with solar water heating systems, officials told Climate Home.

“Smart agriculture” projects are being developed to give work to the more than 860 people who, according to government figures, have already moved into the village, with hundreds more expected to join them soon, they added.

Climate Home was not able to talk to any of the residents, besides government officials, and was not shown around the homes.

Aghali offers a template for around 30 similar villages the Azeri government plans to erect across the captured regions. They are just one part of the mammoth construction drive in the Karabakh area, bankrolled by Baku to the tune of just under $2.5 billion a year – around 12% of total public spending.

While the official vision projects an eco-paradise, in Baku’s breakneck drive to put it into practice, the landscape currently resembles a sprawling construction site, as seen by Climate Home and shown by satellite images.

Travelling up the windy road to Shusha-Shushi just before midnight, the headlights of dump trucks and cement mixers pierced the near-total darkness.

They are the backbone of a giant effort to lay down thousands of kilometres of roads and railways and throw up brand-new airports, vast conference halls, hotels and apartments.

Globally, construction is among the most polluting industries, contributing around 10% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2022, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

In March 2022, the Azerbaijan government invited observers from UNEP to assess the environmental situation in the territories it had gained, after accusing Armenians of large-scale destruction and contamination of the water and soil.

The UNEP team documented “chemical pollution of water” and “deforestation” as a result of activities in dozens of mines and quarries carried out by the Armenian administration “with inadequate environmental oversight and supervision”.

But it also found that Azerbaijan’s building drive, then still in its infancy, was already putting further strains on the environment, as well as causing climate-heating emissions, thereby “adversely impacting the zero-emission goal for the region”.

The construction of new roads was “having a significant impact on forest cover”, its report stated, while the infrastructure programme “placed a significant burden on finite natural raw materials” extracted from local quarries to make cement or asphalt.

The construction drive is altering the landscape in Nagorno-Karabakh. Photo: Matteo Civillini/April 2024

The COP29 spokesperson said Azerbaijan is following the recommendations of the UNEP report and that “a number of mitigation measures have been undertaken” to curb the environmental footprint of the works.

“We believe that the net impact of the reconstruction effort will actually contribute to Azerbaijan’s climate change and decarbonisation goal,” the spokesperson added.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s net zero target has yet to be extended to the rest of the country. Currently Azerbaijan has a goal to reduce emissions 40% by 2050 and has promised to submit a new NDC that is aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5C, which is due by early 2025.

Environmental blockade

In December 2022, environmental concerns became a weapon in the long-running dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani eco-activists blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting the region to the outside world and a vital supply line for food and medicines.

They were ostensibly demonstrating over the impact of mining in the breakaway region. But, according to close watchers of the conflict, the protesters had been sent there by Baku – a claim denied by the COP29 spokesperson.

At the time, one protester told Climate Home that representatives from the Ministry of the Environment were also present. On many other occasions, the Azerbaijan government has cracked down on political dissent, according to human rights groups.

When, four months later, Azerbaijan erected a permanent checkpoint on the road to “prevent the illegal transportation of manpower and weapons”, the sit-in ended. But the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh continued with only limited amounts of aid trickling in.

Shortages of food, medications and fuel plunged the region into a humanitarian crisis, according to UN human rights experts.

“In the end, it was hard to even find bread. There were women and kids queuing all night for a piece of bread,” recalled Siranush Sargsyan, an Armenian journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh, in an interview with Climate Home. “Even if they didn’t kill all of us, they were basically starving people.”

On September 19 2023, Azeri forces launched a lightning attack on the parts of Nagorno-Karabakh still controlled by ethnic Armenians in what Baku called “an anti-terrorist operation”. Within 24 hours, the de-facto government of the enclave surrendered and announced the republic would cease to exist the following January.

Fearing violence and persecution, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians – nearly the entire remaining population – fled their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh and sought refuge in Armenia.

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh region arrive at the Armenian border in a truck in September 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze

“[The] liberation of territories was a main goal of my political life. And I’m proud that these goals have been achieved,” President Aliyev, whose family has ruled over Azerbaijan for the past 31 years, said last December. “I think we brought peace. We brought peace by war.”

Now in full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan is doubling down on its efforts to reshape the region and move tens of thousands of Azeris there. “We will continue the ‘Great Return’ campaign until all those who were forced from their homes can go home,” the COP29 spokesperson said, referring to internally displaced Azeris.

Government officials told Climate Home that ethnic Armenians are also welcome to go back, but only if they stick to the conditions imposed by Baku.

Journalist Sargsyan said returning to Nagorno-Karabakh under Azeri control is out of the question as she fears for her safety. “I left everything there”, she said. “But I would rather die than end up in a prison in Azerbaijan.”

Heritage destruction

Meanwhile, ethnic Armenians fear the huge Azeri construction drive now underway will erase most, if not all, of their legacy.

Nijat Karimov, a special adviser to Azerbaijan’s presidency, told Climate Home that Baku had destroyed Armenian government buildings in Nagorno-Karabakh for “safety” reasons, without giving specifics. He added that Azerbaijan’s government had since “repaired and rehabilitated” the villages.

A day later, Climate Home travelled past what little remains of Karintak village (known as Dashalti in Azeri). Nestled in a gorge sitting just below Shusha-Shushi, it was home to a few hundred ethnic Armenians until Azeri forces took over at the end of 2020.

Now nearly the entire settlement appears to have been razed to the ground, as Climate Home witnessed. Mounds of disturbed soil surround a large mosque, under construction, and a church, one of the few original buildings left standing.

The village of Karintak (bottom right corner), as seen in April 2024 when Climate Home was taken through the region. Photo: Matteo Civillini

Climate Home asked the COP29 Presidency what had happened to the village. A spokesperson said government experts would need to examine the satellite images, buildings and sites referenced in Climate Home’s question “to get a complete answer”.

The case of Karintak is not an isolated one, according to Caucasus Heritage Watch, a research group led by archaeologists at Cornell and Purdue Universities. They have documented the destruction of at least eight Armenian cultural heritage sites – including churches and a cemetery – in the retaken territories since 2021.

Lucrative contracts

Baku says its grand vision is to repopulate Nagorno-Karabakh and the neighbouring areas, attract foreign business and eventually turn them into tourism destinations. But when Climate Home visited, most of what had been built appeared to be under-used, while access to the region is severely restricted.

Two international airports, completed in just 10-15 months a mere 70 km apart, have very little air traffic, except for the occasional charter flight, tracking data shows. A third airfield is now being erected nearby.

In Shusha-Shushi, a five-star spa hotel complex with sleek marble interiors was inaugurated just over a year ago. When Climate Home walked past last month, there was not a client in sight, with only wandering labourers headed to nearby construction sites.

The 5-star Shusha Hotel appeared empty when Climate Home visited in April 2024. Photo: Matteo Civillini

Historian Altstadt said the reconstruction is being driven by multiple incentives. “Yes, it is to get people back to the land they left over 30 years ago, and it is also to put their stamp on it to show ‘this is our territory and we can do what we want’,” she told Climate Home. “But there is also a lot of money to be made by Azerbaijan’s oligarchs.”

Pasha Holding is a conglomerate controlled by the powerful Pashayev family of First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva. It is heavily involved in the rebuilding of Nagorno-Karabakh. It also manages huge tracts of agricultural land and new hotels, and is opening bank branches and supermarkets.

The vast amount of money – and assets – up for grabs is also attracting considerable foreign interest.

Turkish firm Kalyon – considered to have close ties to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to Reporters Without Borders – has won major construction contracts in the territories. And mining permits in Karabakh have been awarded to a group run by pro-Erdogan businessman Mehmet Cengiz.

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British architects Chapman Taylor are earning at least $2.3 million to map out the redevelopment of Shusha-Shushi – which thousands of ethnic Armenians fled following Azeri attacks in 2020 – and will also work on the urban design of other towns.

BP, meanwhile, is developing a 240-megawatt solar power plant in Jabrayil district, with construction expected to begin later this year. Speaking at Baku Energy Week in 2022, Gary Jones, the energy firm’s regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, praised Baku’s efforts to turn Karabakh into “the heart of sustainable development”.

Adopting contested terminology used by Azerbaijan, he said the “liberated territories” are “blessed with some of the country’s best solar and geothermal resources”, creating the “perfect opportunity for a fully net zero system” that “can be built fresh from a new start”.

BP and Chapman Taylor did not respond to Climate Home’s request for comment.

Special presidential representative Hajiyev told Climate Home that many international companies are interested in working in Karabakh. “It’s a huge investment opportunity because a lot of government incentives are provided here,” he said.

(Reporting by Matteo Civillini in Azerbaijan; editing by Megan Rowling and Joe Lo; fact-checking by Sebastian Rodriguez)

Matteo Civillini visited Nagorno-Karabakh, and the surrounding districts, as part of an “energy media tour” organised and sponsored by the COP29 Presidency.

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The birthplace of crude refining, Azerbaijan has embedded fossil fuels in the fabric of its society for centuries. Oil, and more recently, gas have never stopped flowing from the vast reservoirs dotted around the Caspian basin.

Feeding energy-hungry consumers across Europe continues to bring immense wealth to the country and particularly its ruling elite. Fossil fuels make up over 90% of all exports and are by far the largest source of government revenue.

But as it gears up to host the Cop29 UN climate summit in November, Azerbaijan wants to show the world a different image. Burnishing its clean energy credentials through its state-owned oil and gas company, Socar, is part of the plan.

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At a board meeting at the end of December, just a few weeks after the country was appointed as Cop host, Socar announced the creation of a green energy division called Socar Green. It is promising investments in solar and wind projects, green hydrogen production, and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

It was a largely unexpected move for a company planning to expand its gas output and recently criticised for lacking any energy transition strategy. The timing sparked suspicions among international observers: are they serious about it or is this just greenwashing?

“A green division is meaningless for the climate without an accompanying plan to phase out oil and gas”, Myriam Douo, a senior campaigner with Oil Change International, told Climate Home. “The reality is that to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown more than half of fossil fuels in existing fields must stay in the ground”.

Oil and gas keep flowing

Despite being heavily reliant on oil and gas, in global terms Azerbaijan is not a major producer. It pumps less than 1% of the world’s oil and gas output.

Its oil is expected to run out in about 25 years and production is already going down slightly as reserves are depleted. But it has enough gas for nearly 100 years and is exploiting more and more of it each year. Industry analysts Rystad expect its gas production to rise by a third in the next ten years.

“The country will not be producing oil and gas forever”, said Gulmira Rzayeva, an Azerbaijani senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “But consumers in Europe, Turkey, Georgia need these hydrocarbons now and, if Azerbaijan alone stops extracting oil and gas, it will absolutely not change anything for the energy transition of the world. If there are such plans, they need to involve all producers”.

Harjeet Singh, a campaigner at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, agreed that to move away from fossil fuels all nations need to “act in concert, each according to their fair share and historical responsibility”. But he added that”every fossil fuel producer, including Azerbaijan, must have a clear transition plan to phase out fossil fuels”.

No transition plans

Government-controlled Socar is at the heart of Azerbaijan’s money-spinning machine. It extracts, transports and refines fossil fuels, usually in partnership with private European companies like BP and Total or other state-run firms like UAE-based Adnoc.

It is also one of the most worst oil and gas companies in the world in terms of its climate credentials, according to the Oil and Gas Benchmark. Out of 99 firms, its researchers ranked Socar 91st.

Amir Sokolowski is global director of climate at CDP, the non-profit behind the benchmark. He says that, at the time of their analysis late last year, “there were no transition plans to speak of and these take a very, very long time to develop”.

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The firm has no emission reduction targets, no commitment to supporting human rights and no long-term transition plan although it does have a “low-carbon development strategy”.

Socar’s latest accounts dedicate pages and pages to oil and gas operations but only a very small paragraph to any form of green energy activities. Their use of wind and solar energy, the report indicated, was limited to powering measuring devices installed on oil and gas pipelines and to illuminating some office buildings.

“This would not seem to be a high priority on their agenda, but we can hope that with the spotlight of hosting Cop29 things may start to change”, Sokolowski added.

Renewables potential

Azerbaijan’s history with renewable energy is largely one of untapped potential and unmet expectations.

In 2020 Azerbaijan set a target of increasing the share of renewables in its electricity mix to 30% by 2030.

Since then, its barely changed, still standing at 6%, which is almost entirely hydropower rather than wind or solar.

The country has “abundant” wind and solar resources, according to a recent World Bank report, but while investment projects have been announced, “little progress” has been made on the ground.

The dominance of state-owned enterprises, like Socar, was cited by the World Bank as one of the biggest challenges to the energy transition.

The development of the only three major renewable projects (one wind and two solar) have so far rested in the hands of foreign companies.

At the end of last year, president Ilham Aliyev inaugurated the country’s first major solar power plant, which could supply up to 110,000 homes with clean energy. Its owner is the Emirati company Masdar, headed by Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber.

Now Socar wants its slice of the cake. It said in its initial phase the new green energy division will collaborate on these projects with a view to “expand partnership opportunities” and “incorporate international best practices”.

Plans split opinions

Gulmira Rzayeva thinks it is a strategic decision to make Socar’s green push coincide with the country’s Cop hosting. “Socar can play a decisive role”, she said. “It wants to invest in clean energy and it’s targeting production of green hydrogen not only for domestic use but for export.”

Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary announced last year they would set up a joint venture to lay an electricity cable under the Black Sea, bringing green electricity from Azerbaijan to Europe.

Sokolowski says it is hard to predict what Socar’s green proclamations will amount to.

“Will they be leaders on that front? I find it hard to believe”, he added. But “when it comes to renewable energy, having even just a small unit, something that would be considered greenwashing, actually has an impact. It is the beginning of every change”.

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The recent appointment of an all-men committee, with members linked to the country’s oil and gas industry, to organize this year’s Cop29 climate summit in Azerbaijan is a major step backward for climate action.

We see this selection as yet another example of a gender gap in climate leadership with alarming implications for climate justice, effective climate action, and the Cop29 proceedings.

Gender justice is not just a progressive add-on we can include for tackling climate change.

The causes, consequences and solutions of climate change are highly gendered. Research also demonstrates that decisions designed and implemented to address existing inequities – including gender, ethnicity, disability, age, location and income – are not only ethically desirable but result in more effective and sustainable climate change actions.

Who decides at Cop?

Gender diversity in climate leadership is paramount for delivering climate action while leaving no one behind.

But gender imbalances at Cop not only persist but have worsened since the pandemic. Specifically, women constituted 35% of national Party delegates at Cop27, a slight decrease from Cop24 (38%) four years earlier.

A Cop29 committee with only male representation means that only men’s perspectives will inform the committee’s decision-making, missing out on a multifaceted understanding of the gender dynamics both in the consequences of climate change and their proposed solutions.

A complex crisis such as climate change requires diversity, and representation is important at all levels of implementation and can have rippling effects throughout societies.

For example, increased participation of women in government and business leadership has been a lever for addressing gender gaps at the household level.

In the private sector, companies with boards with 30% or more women members have better climate governance, resulting in better general environmental disclosure and fostering more innovation than those with less gender diversity.

Inexcusable decision

Inclusion of people from a range of points on the gender spectrum may be a pipe dream in many parts of the world. But a complete lack of women sitting on the committee is inexcusable and reveals the continuing gender gap in climate leadership.

A seat around the table is a bare minimum request. There is a difference between representation and participation and a gender quota is not a long-term solution to underlying inequities.

Even when women or gender minorities reach positions of power such as membership of the Cop29 committee, presence does not necessarily translate into a balanced representation of interests.

Azerbaijan appoints state oil company veteran as Cop29 president

Each choice made for Cop29 will have major future implications for women, young people and minorities, and yet they are left out of the decision-making from the outset with these appointments. It is disappointing to still need to point out the need for those affected by decisions to be part of the process.

Gender parity may be an overall difficulty for Azerbaijan. The country has one of the worst gender gaps in the region. But the Cop29 committee should be used as an opportunity to demonstrate the country’s understanding of the climate challenge and its willingness to make decisions based on the available evidence.

For the sake of not only the UN climate process but future generations, we expect to see a change in this direction.

Nella Canales, Laura Del Duca and Isabelle Mallon are researchers at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)’s Gender Equality, Social Equity and Poverty Program. Trevor Grizzell is an editor with a PhD in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. 

The post The all-male Cop29 committee is a big step backwards for climate appeared first on Climate Home News.

Azerbaijan has appointed fossil fuel executives and controversial government officials to the committee tasked with organizing the Cop29 climate summit.

The 28 members of the all-male group include senior executives from state-owned oil and gas giant Socar and electricity producer Azerenerji, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev has announced.

The government had earlier selected its environmental minister Mukhtar Babayev as the Cop29 president. Babayev spent 26 years at Socar before joining the government.

Collin Rees, a campaign manager at Oil Change International, said Azerbaijan’s personnel decisions are “pushing us closer to the abyss”.

“The climate movement demands a process free of fossil influence, including real conflict of interest policies to keep fossil interests from co-opting the talks”, he added.

The oil and gas executives will sit on the committee alongside government ministers and officials whose families have been accused of participating in controversial offshore financial schemes.

Women absent

Azerbaijan gets roughly two-thirds of its income from oil and gas. European states are its biggest customers. It is one of the countries most economically reliant on fossil fuels in the world and has plans to increase its fossil fuel production by a third over the next decade, according to Rystad data.

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As the country gears up to host Cop29 in November, Aliyev has put the organising committee in charge of drafting an “action plan” for the summit. The group will also be tasked with setting up an operational company responsible for the logistics of the event.

The committee comprises 28 men and no women in a move slammed as “regressive” by the She Changes Climate campaign group. Men dominate Azerbaijan’s government and state-owned enterprises.

Oil and gas represented

Balababa Rzayev is the head of Azerenergy, the country’s biggest utility company, which produces the vast majority of its electricity in oil and gas power plants, alongside some hydropower stations.

AzerEnergy is building over a dozen power stations in the southwestern Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan regained control of last year following a deadly conflict with neighboring Armenia.

The company has allegedly handed out contracts for the construction of the energy facilities to firms linked to members of Rzayev’s family, according to a report by the Azeri think-tank Economic Research Center.

The other fossil fuel executive around the organising committee table will be Ruslan Aliyev, general director of Azerigas. This is the gas distribution division of oil and gas giant Socar, the company where Cop29 president Babayev spent 26 years.

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Socar ranked 91st out of 99 companies recently profiled by the Oil and Gas Benchmark, which assessed companies on their alignment to a low-carbon world. “Socar has no evidence of supporting a just transition”, the report said.

“The company’s strategy includes limited measures to reduce emissions such as increased energy efficiency, addressing methane leaks and reducing flaring.” Socar has recently announced the creation of a renewable energy division.

Secretive payments

Members of the Azerbaijan Cabinet make up nearly half of the Cop29 organising committee.

Among them is Ali Naghiyev, the head of the state security service, the main domestic intelligence agency. Azerbaijan has been repeatedly been accused of using controversial spyware to target opposition leaders, journalists and civil society both at home and in neighboring Armenia.

Naghiyev’s family were also embroiled in the Azerbaijani Laundromat scandal, a complex money laundering scheme and slush fund that siphoned billions out of the country.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) alleged that a Czech real estate company controlled by Naghiyev’s sons received over a suspected $1.25 million payment from a firm at the center of the scheme. He declined to comment for that article.

Ali Naghiyev has been serving as Azerbaijan’s security chief since 2019. Photo: Interfase

At the time Naghiyev was the deputy chief of the country’s anti-corruption office tasked with investigating state officials for conflicts of interest, nepotism, and other abuses.

Kamaladdin Heydarov, the minister of emergency situations, will also be sitting on the committee.

Regarded as one of the richest and most powerful figures of the governing elite, Heydarov acquired “massive wealth” during his tenure as chairman of the state customs agency — “an agency that is notoriously corrupt, even by Azerbaijani standards”, US diplomat Donald Lu said in 2010.

His children were implicated in a scheme using offshore companies as cover for investments in luxury properties, businesses, and high-end hotels across Europe and the Middle East, according to OCCRP.  A lawyer for the family said at the time that it was an “entirely legitimate and lawful business” and denied Lu’s characterization of the family, calling him “not a reliable source.”

A spokesperson for the government of Azerbaijan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The two countries fought a six-week war over the region in 2020. After thousands of deaths, Azerbaijan’s military emerged victorious. Its government now claims it is suing Armenia for alleged environmental destruction during the 30 years it previously controlled the territory.

On 18 January, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry accused Armenia of “widespread deforestation, unsustainable logging, and pollution through significant construction and mining” in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

It claimed in a press release this was the first known inter-state arbitration under the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention on the conservation of wildlife and natural habitats.

Today, Azerbaijan has launched the first known arbitration case regarding failure to conserve habitats and species under the Bern Convention on Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats – https://t.co/T9w2EiYUkO

— Elnur Mammadov (@ElnurIMammadov) January 19, 2023

Experts told Climate Home that no arbitration request had been officially filed, forests fared better under Armenia’s control than Azerbaijan’s and the case had an “element of propaganda” to it.

‘Environmentalists’ blockade

The two sides have fought over the region, on and off, for more than 100 years. During the Soviet era, it was an autonomous enclave inside Azerbaijan, with an ethnic Armenian majority population. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Armenia took over. In 2008, the UN general assembly took Azerbaijan’s side.

The conflict reignited in 2020 and Armenia gave up control to Azerbaijan and to Russian peacekeepers. Fighting has now stopped and talks over a long-term settlement continue.

There is only one road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. People claiming to be Azerbaijani environmental activists are blocking it.

Armenian leaders have accused them of being Azerbaijani and Turkish nationalists, encouraged by Azerbaijan’s government to blockade the territory.

One of the protesters is the chair of the Women, Development, Future Public Union Gulshan Akhundova. She told Climate Home that Armenians were extracting “our minerals (gold and copper)” and sending them to Armenia and cutting down trees.

She said that most of the protesters were from Azerbaijani environmental NGOs and there are also represenatives of Azerbaijan’s environment ministry there.

Human Rights Watch said the blockade could have “dire humanitarian consequences”. It prevents Armenians in the region getting essential food and services or leaving for Armenia.

A Russian peacekeeper overlooks Azerbaijani protesters blocking the main road to Armenia (Pic: Mahammad Turkman/WikiCommons )

Unep report

The government of Azerbaijan invited the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) to visit Nagorno-Karabakh in March 2022.

The visit was organised between Azerbaijan’s environment ministry and Mahir Aliyev, Unep’s regional co-ordinator for Europe. Aliyev is from Azerbaijan, although he does not represent its government.

Unep’s team was accompanied by environment ministry staff throughout the trip, who organised all meetings and facilitated all visits. Parts of the region are covered with land mines.

The Unep team produced a 45-page report. In its press release announcing the arbitration, the government of Azerbaijan quoted selectively from this report.

It correctly said that Unep had noted Armenia’s mining had caused “chemical pollution of water, soil, and [plants and animals]”. But it left out Unep’s conclusion that the abandonment of farms because of the conflict had led plants and wildlife to “re-establish themselves”.

A forest in Nagorno-Karabakh, as viewed from Gandaszar monastery (Photo: Adam Jones)

Victory Road

Unep further reported that “new road construction – launched as part of the reconstruction drive in January 2021 – is also having a significant impact on forest cover; particularly the approximately ~80-kilometer highway segment between Fuzuli and Shusha”.

Zaur Shiriyev, an analyst from the International Crisis Group in Azerbaijan, explained Azerbaijan’s government began building this road as soon as it took over the region in 2020. It is known as “victory road” in Azerbaijan. The authorities plan to build 1,500 km of roads in the “liberated lands”.

After looking at satellite data, Liz Goldman from Global Forest Watch, told Climate Home: “There does not appear to be significant tree cover loss in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.”

In fact, she said that between roughly 2000 and 2020, the region had gained more tree cover than it lost. It lost 355 hectares and gained 2,310 hectares.

Global Forest Watch’s data covers just 20 years of the 30-year occupation. But it suggests that Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev was wrong to claim that “fifty to sixty thousand hectares of forest have been completely destroyed” by Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Tree cover loss has been especially low in recent years but did increase to about 50 hectares in 2021,” Goldman said, “with loss appearing along roads.” Satellite data shared with Climate Home confirms that this tree loss is along Azerbaijan’s “victory road”.

‘Pressure point’

Shiriyev told Climate Home that both countries were making claims and counter-claims against each other in international forums as leverage in peace talks. “They see it as a pressure point,” he said, adding “there is an element of propaganda for both sides”.

Speaking through British public relations firm Portland Communications, the government of Azerbaijan told Climate Home it had served papers directly to Armenia.

A spokesperson for the Bern Convention’s secretariat said that arbitration requests had to be made to them and “we haven’t received any request so far”.

The government of Azerbaijan declined to be interviewed for this article and, at the time of publication, had not responded to written questions. The government of Armenia did not respond and the Unep declined to comment.

This article was edited on 30 January to remove references to particular articles of the Bern convention

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Spanning seven countries and costing $40bn, the southern gas corridor (SGC) is due to begin piping 10 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to Europe per year in 2019, according to the European Commission.

The EU aims to eventually receive up to 100bcm of natural gas annually through a pipeline that will snake through Turkey, Greece and Albania before transiting across the Adriatic sea to Italy.

The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is due to make a loan statement on Wednesday for a $500m investment. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is also mulling a $2bn loan, the largest in the bank’s history. An EIB vote on their loan, also expected on Wednesday, has been postponed.

The banks describe the project as critical for energy security in Europe. Critics say the industry-drafted gas demand forecasts the EU relied on when proposing the corridor have been discredited, its climate impact has not been investigated, and its construction will benefit organised crime and human rights violators.

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Deepening the gloom, Simon Pirani, a senior research fellow and author at Oxford University’s Institute for Energy Studies, told Climate Home News the EU’s dream of a supply expansion beyond 10bcm per year was highly unlikely, with plans still unfinished and private investment yet to materialise.

“I have doubts about any significant quantities of additional gas going along that route, because it’s not clear which gas fields in the Caspian they could come from,” he said.

“There is a field being developed by [Azerbaijan state oil company] SOCAR with Total but that will not produce significant quantities of gas and those companies have already agreed that the gas produced there will go to the domestic Azerbaijan market. There won’t be any left for export. So the amount that Azerbaijan can contribute to [Europe’s gas market] is really quite minor.”

EU hopes for diversified supplies would likely be dashed, he argued, with neighbouring Turkmenistan far more interested on exporting eastwards to China, and little gas availability in Iran’s northwest, from where it could be pumped to Europe.

The 10bcm of gas a year that Azerbaijan has committed to supply would constitute just 2.5% of the 400bcm Europe consumed in 2015, and make little dent in its dependence on Russian supplies, Pirani said.

The pipeline’s cost is equal to the EU’s entire investment in low carbon transformation over the 2014-2020 period.

““I have doubts about any significant quantities of additional gas going along that route,” said Simon Pirani (Photo: Tanap)

The European Commission did not respond to requests for comment. As part of the G7, the EU has committed to ending “inefficient” public subsidies to fossil fuel projects by 2025.

But in Brussels, the project is seen as a vital diversification of energy supplies, freeing the continent from a potential Russian stranglehold.

The bloc’s vice president, Maros Sefcovic has hailed the SGC as an historic “turning point” shifting Europe into mixed and diverse energy markets.

The EU’s decision to include the southern gas corridor on a list of “essential” projects of common interest was taken on the basis of a gas demand forecast by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (Entsog).

Entsog is a coalition of gas companies and their subsidiaries, which is not listed as a lobby despite sharing a building with the trade association, Gas Infrastructure Europe. Its analyses are not in line with the EU’s climate plans, and it has consistently overestimated gas demand for a decade, according to Friends of the Earth Europe (FoE).

Europe’s actual gas demand in 2015 was 27% lower than projections in 2008, when the pipeline was proposed, and the commission, the International Energy Agency and Entso-E (Entsog’s regulated electricity twin) have all revised their forecasts downwards.

Report: Human rights report quashed in push for Azerbaijan-EU gas pipeline

Think tank E3G expects EU gas demand to flatline – or at best recover slightly – in the short term, and decline thereafter, as the clean economy transformation takes hold. An E3G modelling study found that the SGC was not needed to safeguard against supply disruptions, under any scenario.

That leaves an infrastructural white elephant that could “quickly become a climate bomb”, according to Antoine Simon, a spokesman for FoE. “We know the longer these mega-pipelines are, the higher the risks are for leaks to happen, and it does not get better as these infrastructure age,” he said.

Natural gas may have a global warming potential many times higher than renewables but, as SGC funders, Europe’s development banks have taken their lead from the commission, even though it has carried out no climate impact assessment.

On paper, the EIB and EBRD have committed to considering the climate impacts of their investments. In practice though, the banks are enablers, said the NGO Bankwatch. 

“The project is too big and risky to be financed only from private sources,” said Bankwatch spokeswoman Anna Roggenbuck. “International financial institutions provide loans which also cover political and economic risks.”

Climate Home News approached both banks for interview. The EIB asked for questions in advance, and then turned down the request. The EBRD demanded editorial privileges before publication, which we considered unacceptable.

The institutions’ guarded response follows the announcement of a Bulgarian government inquiry into Kalin Mitrev, the country’s representative on the EBRD board, after the Guardian revealed he received almost $500,000 via the $2.9bn Azerbaijani laundromat scheme. Mitrev says the payments were for legitimate consultancy.

The ERBD loan would be made to the Southern Gas Corridor Closed Joint Stock Company, which is owned by the Azeri government and its state oil company.

The slush fund was also used to pay medical bills worth tens of thousands of dollars to Yaqub Eyyubov, Azerbaijan’s deputy prime minister tasked with developing its oil and gas strategy. Eyyubov’s son also received millions of dollars from the laundromat via a Hungarian bank account, the Guardian reported.

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It is not known what due diligence measures Europe’s banks have taken to investigate Azeri laundromat payments – or to vet, monitor and audit SGC funding disbursements. These have already been beset by charges of corruption, cartelism and mafia infiltration, many substantiated in courts of law.

According to Human Rights Watch, Azerbaijan is a highly repressive regime, where dissidents are routinely arrested, torture is rife, independent media are shut down and human rights monitors cannot operate freely.

Two years ago, the European Parliament called for the EU to suspend all funds to Azerbaijan over its human rights violations, which appear to also breach EIB standards. In March, the central Asian country withdrew from the extractive industries’ global watchdog in response to criticism of its poor record on civil society engagement.

“Given its shaky business case, unresolved human rights issues and legitimate climate concerns, I’m surprised the EBRD wants anything to do with the southern gas corridor,” said Jonathan Gaventa, the director of E3G.

“The southern gas corridor is more than energy diversification and EU energy security for us,” said EU foreign policy high representative Federica Mogherini (Photo: Tanap)

Even the argument that it can diversify the EU’s gas supply away from Russia appears shaky. Russian giant Gazprom has said that it may use the pipeline to transport Russian gas to Europe, under the project’s non-discriminatory auctioning system, and according to reports in the Azeri press may already be planning on this.

Russia’s Lukoil has taken a 10% share in Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz drilling consortium and the Italian oil firm Eni signed a memo of understanding with Gazprom in March to explore piping Russian gas to Europe through the corridor.

But for the EU, Azerbaijan is more than just a Caspian gas field. The former Soviet republic remains economically and culturally linked to Russia and the southern gas corridor offers the prospect of wedging what then-president Dmitry Medvedev called in 2011, “the closest friendship and trust links” between the two countries.

“The southern gas corridor is more than energy diversification and EU energy security for us,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, said last year. “It is also about enlarging and deepening political, economic and social ties with a number of partners in a wider region… Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Albania.”

“We need an all-round strategic partnership between us,” Mogherini added, “and I am glad this is Azerbaijan’s vision, too.”

Asked whether the southern gas corridor was in America’s national security interests, a US state department official told Climate Home: “The US sees it as certainly in its interest that the national security interests of partners – and their stability, whether economic or political – be assured.”

“And if there is energy insecurity, we think that undermines security more broadly speaking,” the official added.

What is the Southern Gas Corridor?

BP calls it “arguably the global oil and gas industry’s most significant and ambitious undertaking yet”. It is a three part pipeline that, if completed, will carry gas from the Shah Deniz 2 oil field in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania into southern Italy.

Sections:

• South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) – Azerbaijan, Georgia
• Trans Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap) – Turkey
• Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap) – Greece, Albania, Italy

Source: TAP

Ownership: At least 11 different companies are involved in the corporate ownership structures of the various sections. Major players include BP, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, Turkish Petroleum, Petronas, Lukoil, Total and Snam.

Public finances: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank and Asian Development Bank and are all considering publicly-backed loans for the development in excess of $500m each. The World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have already committed $500m and $600m.

The post EU bank to decide huge public loan to Europe’s biggest fossil fuel project appeared first on Climate Home News.

“The implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor is already a reality. True, there are those who want to prevent us. It is natural. We came across these ten years ago,” said Aliyev, as reported by the Azerbaijan Press Agency on Tuesday.

The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the world’s largest fossil fuel projects, with a projected construction cost of $46bn.

It is opposed by environmental and human rights groups on the basis it will lock in fossil fuel dependence and its construction across Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania and Italy will expose communities to forced relocations and disruption.

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Last month, Azerbaijan was suspended from the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global watchdog that sets standards for human rights in countries where the fossil fuel industry operates. Aliyev’s autocratic government had failed to ease pressure on civil society groups, despite repeated warnings from the EITI board.

Speaking to ministers at a quarterly review of the Caucasus nation’s economy, Aliyev said: “I remember at the time when the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline was built, the forces who sought to attack our policy, as well as the Armenian lobby and some circles having a negative attitude to the project, in a variety of ways, mostly with the environmental pretexts tried to thwart our work.

“To a certain extent, they have achieved this. I remember that at that time even some international financial institutions delayed loans. But despite this, in 2006 Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan was opened. And today, some circles, outside forces are again trying, under the pretext of ecology, to delay work in some segments of the Southern Gas Corridor.”

Late in March, the Italian government approved the final section of the pipeline, where it crosses the Adriatic into Puglia. Activists immediately launched protests.

Preparations are being made for the pipeline in the southern Balkans, with Greece and Albania’s governments acquiring land from farmers. In Turkey the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap) section is already well underway.

Grassroots movements are preparing to resist the construction of the pipeline along its course, but in Turkey the risk of suppression is likely to quell real resistance.

Watchdog suspends Azerbaijan, EU gas pipeline loans threatened

Billions in public finance for the pipeline are already approved from the World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Several other development banks are considering loans. All are being targeted by activist groups to reconsider or reject their support.

Aliyev said their criticisms had “no grounds” and that all environmental standards would be observed.

“I am confident that 2017 will be decisive in this respect, and next year we should mark the opening of the Tanap project,” he said.

The project is proceeding with strong support from within the European Commission, which argues that it will diversify the bloc’s gas supply away from Russian gas. (Although last month Russian state gas company Gazprom and Italy’s Eni signed a deal that paves the way for the Russian company to access to the pipeline).

What is the Southern Gas Corridor?

BP calls it “arguably the global oil and gas industry’s most significant and ambitious undertaking yet”. It is a three-part pipeline that, if completed, will carry gas from the Shah Deniz 2 oil field in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania into southern Italy.

The pipeline is supposed to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas. Campaigners argue that it is likely to become a stranded asset as gas demand in Europe is predicted to remain stagnant. Many have raised concerns about deepening Europe’s financial and political cooperation with the autocratic Aliyev regime.

Total cost: Estimated at US$46bn

Timeframe: Construction is underway, due to be completed by 2020

Sections:

• South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) – Azerbaijan, Georgia
• Trans Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap) – Turkey
• Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap) – Greece, Albania, Italy1

Source: TAP

Ownership: At least 11 different companies are involved in the corporate ownership structures of the various sections. Major players include BP, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, Turkish Petroleum, Petronas, Lukoil, Total and Snam.

Public finances: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank and Asian Development Bank and are all considering publicly-backed loans for the development in excess of $500m each. The World Bank and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank have approved loans totalling $1.4bn.

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The World Bank’s board of directors on Tuesday granted $400m loans to the Turkish and Azeri governments to complete their 1,850 km segment of the Southern Gas Corridor – known as the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (Tanap) – which will connect southern Europe with gas fields in Azerbaijan.

In Turkey, the World Bank loan will be overseen by state-owned corporation Botas, which has contracted various construction companies to complete sections of the work.

Powerful executives within these companies were convicted for their involvement in organised gangs that systematically rigged tenders in the energy sector during the 1990s and 2000s, according to a report released last week by Bankwatch.

#SouthernGasCorridor or Southern Graft Corridor? Who benefits from Europe's pet #energy project? https://t.co/0hSC3tSQjN #corruption pic.twitter.com/CIFTuwsQZs

— Bankwatch (@ceebankwatch) December 14, 2016

The Fernas group, which will build a 375km section through northeastern Turkey from the Georgian border, is owned by Muzaffer Nasiroğlu. Nasiroğlu was jailed for bribery and corruption in 2005. The current CEO of Fernas, Yaşar Giregiz, was also convicted for his involvement.

At the opposite end of the pipeline, where the Limak company will build the section that crosses the Greek border, the chairman of Limak Nihat Özdemir was convicted in 2008 for his involvement in rigging tenders, including for pipeline projects.

Botas, the state-owned pipeline company that granted tenders to Limak, Fernas and others, was at the centre of a massive investigation, known as Operation Blue Line, which lead to 77 executives (including Nasiroğlu and Özdemir) standing trial in 2008.

Initially a court sentenced all 77 defendants to jail, but a series of appeals finally lead to an overturning of the judgement in the Supreme Court in March 2016 due to insufficient evidence.

Sakir Arikan, who works with Fernas and was one of the 77 executives involved in the Operation Blue Line, told Climate Home that the accusations in the Bankwatch report were false and that the executives had been exonerated. He said that the judges in the case had been jailed for their part in an attempted coup in 2016.

The World Bank has been contacted for comment on the contents of the Bankwatch report.

On announcing the loan on Tuesday, World Bank vice-president for Europe and Central Asia Cyril Muller said: “Tanap will not only boost competitiveness and create economic opportunities for people in Azerbaijan and Turkey, it will also support regional trade, improve connectivity, and support energy security in Turkey and in Europe.”

Report: Human rights review quashed in push for Azerbaijan-EU gas pipeline

A coalition of civil society groups, including Bankwatch, oppose the construction of the pipeline. They argued that the corruption exposed by the report raises doubts that the project would provide public benefit.

“It is hard to see how the World Bank’s support to this project will benefit in any way citizens in Azerbaijan and Turkey. Such financing is at odds with any development logic since it mainly reinforces the reliance of both countries on revenues linked to fossil fuels for the autocratic regimes in place,” said Xavier Sol, director of Counter Balance.

“Yesterday’s decision comes at a time when Turkey’s ongoing martial law means intensifying crackdown on journalists and civil society, thus preventing vital public scrutiny of the largest infrastructure project in the country,” said Anna Roggenbuck, a policy officer at Bankwatch.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was scheduled to vote on Wednesday on its own $600m loan to Tanap. A World Bank press release implied that several other development banks that have been considering loans were joining the bank in a coalition to support the Southern Gas Corridor. However there was no confirmation of this on other development bank websites.

According to Bankwatch, a total of $9.4bn in public development finance is under consideration for the $45bn project.

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In Azerbaijan, the World Bank’s $400m loan will also be handled by state owned companies. The regime, headed by president Ilham Aliyev, has a deeply troubling human rights record. But energy security and the supply of gas to Europe have tempted politicians to overlook and even actively quash those concerns in order to curry favour in Baku.

However analysis by the London-based environmental think tank E3G found that the argument that the Southern Gas Corridor was necessary to secure energy supply was based on an assumption that the 2030 gas demand would be 72% higher than expected, should Europe meet its energy efficiency targets.

“This is not rocket science, why would you pipe gas in from Asia? For what reason are you doing it when there is a glut of gas capacity across Europe?” said E3G chief executive Nick Mabey.

“With clever, integrated infrastructure planning, which we don’t do in Europe, you could get energy security much cheaper and with much less capital outlay. But of course, for lots of people, the capital outlay is the whole point, because that’s where you get the 10% and that’s where people make their money.”

The Bankwatch report also highlighted corruption and organised crime links in Italian and Greek companies that have won contracts to work on lower sections of the pipeline.

UPDATE: According to reports, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) approved a $600m loan to the Tanap project on Wednesday. It is the biggest ever loan made by the AIIB.

What is the Southern Gas Corridor?

BP calls it “arguably the global oil and gas industry’s most significant and ambitious undertaking yet”. It is a three part pipeline that, if completed, will carry gas from the Shah Deniz 2 oil field in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania into southern Italy.

The pipeline is supposed to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas. Campaigners argue that it is likely to become a stranded asset as gas demand in Europe is predicted to remain stagnant. Many have raised concerns about deepening Europe’s financial and political cooperation with the autocratic Aliyev regime.

Total cost: Estimated at US$45bn

Timeframe: Construction is underway, due to be completed by 2020

Sections:

• South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) – Azerbaijan, Georgia
• Trans Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap) – Turkey
• Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap) – Greece, Albania, Italy

Source: TAP

Ownership: At least 11 different companies are involved in the corporate ownership structures of the various sections. Major players include BP, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, Turkish Petroleum, Petronas, Lukoil, Total and Snam.

Public finances: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank and Asian Development Bank and are all considering publicly-backed loans for the development in excess of $500m each. The World Bank has approved an $800m loan.

The post Turkish gas companies with corrupt past get World Bank loan appeared first on Climate Home News.

The report was voted down in the Council of Europe on 23 January 2013. On 28 June of the same year, the European Commission gave the go-ahead to a pipeline joining Azerbaijan with southern Italy, known as the Southern Gas Corridor. On 11 August, the Italian prime minister Enrico Letta visited the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

German Social Democrat Christoph Strasser, who wrote the report when he was his country’s human rights commissioner, said: “I would be surprised if there wasn’t a connection between these events. By rejecting my report Azerbaijan saved its reputation and nobody had nothing to say when they started doing business [in Europe].”

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Strasser was speaking to Italy’s RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana) programme “Report”, for the Caviar Democracy episo which aired on 21 November 2016.

The report was rejected under unusual circumstances, according to some observers. Several MPs, including Azerbaijan’s Naira Karapetyan, noted that a number of new faces from Russia, Turkey, Spain and Italy were present on the board for the first time – to vote down the report – and were never seen again at the Council of Europe.

Strasser reported political pressure from the Azerbaijani government, who denied him the visa to enter the country while he was researching for his report. “It was the first time that an MP tasked with writing a report was denied access [to a relevant country]” he said.

What is the Southern Gas Corridor?

BP calls it “arguably the global oil and gas industry’s most significant and ambitious undertaking yet”. It is a three part pipeline that, if completed, will carry gas from the Shah Deniz 2 oil field in Azerbaijan’s Caspian Sea through Georgia, Turkey, Greece, Albania into southern Italy.

The pipeline is supposed to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas. Campaigners argue that it is likely to become a stranded asset as gas demand in Europe is predicted to remain stagnant. Many have raised concerns about deepening Europe’s financial and political cooperation with the autocratic Aliyev regime.

Total cost: Estimated at US$45bn

Timeframe: Construction is underway, due to be completed by 2020

Sections:

• South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) – Azerbaijan, Georgia
• Trans Anatolian Pipeline (Tanap) – Turkey
• Trans Adriatic Pipeline (Tap) – Greece, Albania, Italy

Source: TAP

Ownership: At least 11 different companies are involved in the corporate ownership structures of the various sections. Major players include BP, Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR, Turkish Petroleum, Petronas, Lukoil, Total and Snam.

Public finances: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Investment Bank, Asian Development Bank and World Bank are all considering publicly-backed loans for the development in excess of $500m each.

Elkhan Suleymanov, a friend of the Azerbaijani prime minister and head of the country’s delegation within the Council of Europe wrote a letter to the German parliament claiming that Strasser was a liar. “The German parliament answered firmly, also issuing an appeal to to the Azerbaijani government to allow me in the country where I could monitor the situation of political prisoners. But that didn’t help,” Strasser said.

An estimated 100 people are in jail for their opinions in Azerbaijan, the documentary reported. Even a like on a Facebook post criticising the government can get someone into deep trouble.

“Straight after the vote, Suleymanov stood up and shouted ‘You see, this is not Mr Strasser’s Council of Europe, this is Azerbaijan’s Council of Europe!’” Strasser recalled.

Europe’s Keystone XL: Planned gas pipeline is reckless

The Italian MP Luca Volonté, who was part of the Azerbaijani lobby group who voted against the report, is accused of corruption and money laundering in relation to the project. He is being investigated by Italian prosecutors under suspicion of taking a €2.4 million bribe from the Azerbaijani government, to support its cause at a European level.

Samuel Farmanyan, an Azerbaijani MP, said: “When I started working with the Europe People’s Party I realised that within the Council of Europe there was a lobby group that was spreading like a metastasis. The group was headed by Luca Volonte’ and Pedro Agramunt, a Spanish MP”. Farmanyan is “Absolutely certain” that the Azerbaijani lobby paid for the support of its allies.

Strasser, who resigned as human rights commissioner earlier this year to focus on his work in the German Bundestag, said for the government of an oil rich country, paying a €2m bribe is not a big deal. “From their perspective, it’s a good investment” he said.

The Trans Adriatic Pipeline is expected to enter Italy through the small town of Melendugno, in Puglia, before being connected to the national grid.

It will connect Italy and Central Europe to the southern gas corridor, which will bring Azerbaijani gas through Georgia, Turkey, Greece and Albania once it is completed – expected to be in 2020.

Report: Green anger as EU prepares to subsidise dash for gas

The Southern Gas Corridor is meant to diversify the energy portfolio of Mediterranean countries in order to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian gas, tapping into the Caspian sea’s reserves.

But a study from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies found that the Azerbaijani gas may not be as abundant as previously thought, due to an increase in domestic demand and an unexpected decline in the state-owned reserves.

Simon Pirani, author of the study, said: “The TAP consortium says that, to start with, the corridor will deliver 10 billion cubic meters of gas, a figure that will increase up to 20 billion.

“However, I don’t understand where this additional gas may come from. We know that the current reserves will be in decline by 2023.

“Azerbaijan has recently asked Russia to supply additional gas to meet its domestic demand. If they don’t have enough for their own needs, how much will they have to export to Europe?”

The post Human rights report quashed in push for Azerbaijan-EU gas pipeline appeared first on Climate Home News.