"It is possible that on the eve of COP29, the authorities will take a number of adequate decisions"

The "Conference of the Parties (COP29)" will be held in Baku from November 11 to 22. COP "Conference of the Parties", that is, the Conference of the Parties, and the number 29 in the name indicates that the event is the 29th in a row. The previous COP28 event took place last year in Dubai (UAE). This event had about 100 thousand participants.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, holding the first meeting with members of the Azerbaijani government on December 15 in connection with COP29, said that "according to some assumptions, about 70-80 thousand foreign guests will be in our country within two weeks."

According to the State Statistics Committee, in 2022, the number of beds in hotels and inns in Baku and the Absheron Peninsula amounted to 24,696. It is not known how this figure has changed in the past, in 2023.

Is Baku ready to host such a big event?

Fuad Hasanov, a member of the Global Council for the Eurasian Region of the International Organization Publish What You Pay, chairman of the Public Association Monitor of Democracy, ex-chief Specialist of the United Nations Development Program, shared his thoughts on this topic with ASTNA.

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Question: What will the holding of such an event as COP29 in Baku give Azerbaijan?

Answer: It is known that COP29 is another major UN climate event that plays an important role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. COP stands for "Conference of the Parties" and often refers to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international meeting dedicated to climate. The COP is the main decision-making body of the UNFCCC. By focusing on the interdependence of actions to combat climate change and sustainable development, COP29 strives to create a more sustainable and equitable world.

In June this year, during the 60th session of the UNHCR Subsidiary Bodies (SB60) in Bonn (Germany), Azerbaijan, as Chairman of COP29, stressed that technical issues related to the New Quantitative Climate Target (NQCT) and Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and its international carbon market mechanisms would be priorities for its the chairmanship of COP29.

Each year, the Conference of the Parties event is held in the capital or designated city of one of the 197 countries that have acceded to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. At the latest COP event, the countries of the regional group in consultations determine which country in this region can host the next meeting of this important conference. COP 15, which adopted the global biodiversity framework, was held in Montreal (Canada) in 2022. But the challenges of global warming have surpassed the biodiversity agenda, and the COP framework document on climate change, adopted in Bonn in 1994, continued to signal a more serious concern.

According to the government, COP29, which will be held in Baku this November, like its predecessors, will focus on advancing the goals of the United Nations UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, including efforts to limit global warming, adapt to the effects of climate change and mobilize funding for these activities. In this sense, Azerbaijan, having demonstrated its voluntary active role in this process, is organizing the next conference of the parties, which was joined by 197 countries creating global commitments on climate change. Since the process on this topic is multidimensional and requires inclusivity for serious success, it is natural that the attention of the whole world is focused on Azerbaijan. Global and regional environmental organizations, multinational mining companies, international financial institutions, high-ranking heads of state, and global media will participate in this important 2-week event and related process. Since climate change prevention, mitigation and adaptation require serious inclusivity, the human rights issue is at the core of this process and global, regional and national human rights organizations will apply to participate in this event with their own agenda.

Question: Is Baku ready to host such an event?

Answer: I would like to note that the biodiversity protection agenda may not affect people, but it is impossible not to notice the consequences of climate change and the problems that it generates.  We would not be wrong to say that global attention to the climate change agenda is growing day by day, with every season. If two years ago more than 40,000 participants attended COP27 in Egypt, then last year at COP28 in Dubai the number of participants increased at least twice, about 85,000 participants joined the events.  Interestingly, about 40,000 guests are expected to participate in the events of the 11-day conference related to COP29 in Baku, which is less than half of the number of participants in COP28 held in Dubai last year, and about the same number as there were participants who joined COP27, which was held in Sharm el-The Sheikh two years ago. Azerbaijan, as the party chairing the conference for the holding of COP29 events for eleven days, will use the mechanism of attracting volunteers to effectively manage the process.

The venue for the COP29 events has already been determined, this is the Olympic Stadium, where the European Games were once held. All plenary sessions will be held at this stadium, and to ensure efficiency, it is planned to create additional corners around the stadium.

And the possibilities of hotel rooms will be realized through a single global website platform. All this was announced by the organizing committee of the conference back in April through the press, and this is the organizational and technical aspects of the work. As stated, the number of participants in COP29 will be less than the number of participants in the last two SOROS, but it will be the largest international event held in Azerbaijan to date. Many years ago, Baku gained experience in creating an infrastructure that allows it to receive a large number of guests coming to the country for such megaprojects as the Eurovision Song Contest, the European Games, and checking the possibility of adapting existing infrastructure to new requirements is possible. It should be noted that according to available data, for this purpose, finishing works are being hastily conducted in new buildings located in different parts of the city and it becomes clear that they are intended for receiving guests.

But in any case, there are well-established ineffective management rules related to the current management system in the country, and potential risks are possible in the areas and areas indicated in your question.

There is still no efficient public transport system in Baku. For a long time now, there have not even been daily rush hours in Baku, almost all the time, except at night and a few hours closer to morning, there is congestion in the city.  Baku Airport is able to serve 6 million people per year. This figure reflects not only the number of arrivals in the country, but that is also, at best, Baku airport can receive from 8 to 10 thousand passengers daily. And not all passengers who land at the airport during about two weeks of COP29 events arrive at COP29. With a few exceptions, Baku Airport does not serve low-cost airlines, and flights provided by the companies it serves are very expensive. Under these conditions, the country's land borders have been closed for four years, and the authorities still cannot give a reasoned explanation for this and do not show the desire to find the will to open land borders.

Question: A lot of official guests will come to Azerbaijan in connection with this event. How is such a number of political prisoners and the state of human rights in Azerbaijan perceived or will be perceived by these officials on the eve of the event?

Answer: Yes, as mentioned above, not only climate activists will arrive in the country, and in fact, establishing the effective activities of climate activists is also fundamental to human rights. Civil society is one of three shareholders in a wide variety of areas not directly aimed at civil and political freedoms - from mineral resource management to energy transition and climate change. Freedom of thought, expression, legislation regulating the activities of civil society, and the practice environment are in a terrible state.

Since the national organization that I head in 2014 could not achieve state registration of the grant project received from the European Union for 2 years, it was decided to terminate the grant agreement, and this amount was directed to support civil society organizations of other Eastern Partnership countries.  Another project, which will be implemented with the support of the European Union and aimed at empowering women, next year should be implemented on the basis of separate agreements on a simplified tax regime through the UN PR, but the implementation of events in the regions depends on obtaining permission from the highest political authority for each event and serious problems with its provision, from- because of this, many events in the regions could not be held.

The "one window" system, adopted under the guise of increasing the activity of civil society, created conditions for the registration of legal entities in the best case in the format of a limited liability company, and the institutional function of civil society organizations remained behind the scenes. In short, the country is fighting climate change alone, in an environment where civil society is tied hand and foot. For 10 years now, the legislation has been seriously tightened, and serious international funds have been subjected to legal persecution and left the country.

Since November last year, when the gray environment of civil society was still dragging on, another "crusade" began against alternative media structures and civil society that managed to maintain their independence. More than 10 journalists from media structures such as “AbzasMedia,” “Toplum TV,” “Kanal 13,” representing examples of research and free news journalism, civil society organizations associated with these media structures, as well as heads of professional civil society organizations Anar Mammadli and Akif Gurbanov, co-founder of “Toplum TV” and an independent professional media expert, lawyer Alesker Mammadli were arrested for political reasons, criminal cases were initiated against them and arrest was chosen as a preventive measure.

It is worth noting that the arrested head of “Kanal 13,” Aziz Orujev, being a member of the still existing Council of the national Coalition of Public Associations for Increasing Transparency in the Mining Industry, holding constant discussions on natural resource management, energy transition, climate change and increasing women's participation in decision-making in these areas, as well as civil society cooperation, creating The opportunities for lengthy discussions on the TV he directed made an exceptionally positive contribution. The fight against climate change is an inclusive process that requires broad discussion with the participation of all stakeholders, and this is possible only if the broad and unhindered activities of a free civil society are ensured.

After the crisis with Iran at the beginning of last year, the number of arrests of believers on various charges increased even more, which aggravated the situation with political prisoners. According to some estimates, there are currently more than 300 people arrested for political reasons in the country. Gubad Ibadoglu, a public figure in the field of transparency, professor at the London School of Economics, who was arrested last summer, is under investigation on politically motivated charges. And although, thanks to constant international demands at a high level, he was transferred to house arrest, the authorities still do not intend to release him.  

This case is seriously condemned by international organizations, is reflected in various current reports, they call on the country's authorities to release political prisoners, especially on the eve of COP29.

Representatives of the European Union and other reputable international institutions, led by European Commissioner for Climate Protection Wopke Hoekstra, are looking for ways to positively influence the behavior and decisions of the Azerbaijani authorities on the eve of COP29, while trying to prevent a new wave of arrests.

Question: What can officials who come from the main leading countries do to avoid and prevent such cases?

Answer: The serious investments attracted to strategic projects in Azerbaijan come mainly from countries belonging to the Euro-Atlantic area, which we call bearers of Western values, who have managed to build an established democratic government based on a real fair distribution of power. These are countries represented by multinational corporations, which at the first stage signed the "Contract of the Century" and have long been pouring serious funds into the country from the exploitation of oil and gas. These are countries that bring serious benefits to the economy of Azerbaijan with their large projects. Azerbaijan is also represented in international intergovernmental organizations together with these countries.  There are diplomatic channels and mechanisms for delivering constant serious messages to the country's authorities about a systematic solution to existing human rights problems.

Azerbaijan is a strategic partner of the European Union, despite the fact that an alternative "Comprehensive Partnership Agreement" has not yet been signed between the two sides, the Union's financial assistance to Azerbaijan for sustainable strategic projects continues. Agreements on such projects may establish "conditionality rules" and "benchmarks", including a section on human rights. In addition, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other international financial institutions financing various national and regional projects in Azerbaijan can use the same principled approach and rules in projects they want to start in the country.

Potential decisions of the European Union Parliament play an important role in achieving positive aspects in the behavior of Western governments, international financial institutions, and multinational companies implementing strategic partnership projects with Azerbaijan.

Question: There is an opinion that political prisoners can be released before COP29. But there is also an opposite opinion according to which political prisoners will be released after the event. By the way, we have had such an experience. After the first European Games, a significant number of political prisoners were released. What are your expectations?

Answer:  Given that hotbeds of conflict and crises are growing in the world, and mainly in the region, the resumption of the Middle East crisis and the growth of bloody processes, difficult issues have been added to the agenda of the Western camp, which failed to resolve the Ukrainian crisis, stop the Russian occupation. The Taiwan crisis between the United States and China has given new sensitive shades to the conflict between world powers. Azerbaijan is a serious partner of the European Union in the Eastern Partnership, the significant role it plays in the energy security of the European Union, its ambitions to contribute to global projects in an extremely vulnerable region, give it room for maneuver in the regional plane. And it also prevents him from responding sensitively and flexibly to international challenges related to human rights. At the same time, the Russian factor must be taken into account very seriously.

But global and regional processes are developing rapidly, although Azerbaijan has liberated the occupied territories, a peace treaty has not yet been signed, issues of prospective reintegration in the region remain open, there is a need to rationally take into account the parties that can make a positive contribution to the process, it is harmful to spoil relations. In addition, the restoration of Karabakh and the surrounding areas liberated from occupation is a long, difficult and financially intensive process that will be very difficult for Azerbaijan to carry out alone, without international support.

In this sense, it is impossible for Azerbaijan to ignore the constant international calls related to the improvement of the human rights situation in the country, the release of political prisoners, the cessation of pressure on civil society and free media and other problems.

It seems that the government's goal is to delay the process to the last stage as much as possible, gain more time for possible maneuvers and be able to keep topics on the negotiating table for as much discussion and agreement as possible. The issue of Azerbaijan's image in international and regional cooperation is still not closed, perhaps the day before, closer to COP29, the authorities, although belatedly, will take a number of adequate decisions. The requirements in this direction, both through open diplomatic channels and through various international mechanisms, should be based on clear criteria and conditions.