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The host nation for the upcoming UN COP29 local weather summit skipped over the transition from fossil fuels in an inventory of priorities for the gathering in Azerbaijan, focusing as an alternative on energy storage, waste methane and battle.
The “action agenda” of worldwide initiatives and pledges that Azerbaijan plans to put ahead in Baku in November features a sixfold enhance in battery storage capability, sweeping expansions to electrical energy networks and cuts in emissions from methane from natural waste. It additionally features a name for motion plans for tourism and water.
But it didn’t cowl plans for the top of fossil gasoline use in energy techniques that was set down final yr’s landmark pact in Dubai, the place virtually 200 international locations struck an settlement then described as UN management because the “beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era”. The burning of fossil fuels is the one greatest contributor to local weather change.
The president-designate for COP29, Mukhtar Babayev, is the minister of ecology in Azerbaijan and a former vice-president at state-owned oil and gas firm Socar.
In his letter on Tuesday to the states and different organisations due to participate within the summit, Babayev cited a warning from twelfth century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi that “humanity will destroy itself” except “harmony and consent” reign between folks and nature.
He additionally referenced the local weather challenges confronted by Azeris at dwelling, corresponding to excessive warmth and water shortage, the place the Caspian Sea has been shrinking, in addition to the nation’s “abundant” wind and photo voltaic potential.
He proposed that international locations undertake targets for slicing the manufacturing of methane as a byproduct of waste and meals techniques. Waste is simply the third commonest man-made supply of methane, after the energy and agricultural sectors, in accordance to the UN.
He steered away from suggesting that Azerbaijan ought to reassess the dominant position in its personal economic system of oil and gas exports, which it has mentioned permits it to assist meet Europe’s energy calls for.
The gathering in Baku in November is anticipated to be the second annual local weather summit in a row to happen towards a backdrop of battle in Gaza and in Ukraine.
Babayev mentioned the summit may very well be the chance for a “COP Truce”, from seven days earlier than to seven days after the summit. This is modelled on efforts to urge the suspension of hostilities in the course of the Olympic Games, and may increase consciousness of the necessity to discover collective options to shield susceptible folks, he added.
UK international secretary David Lammy additionally plans to hyperlink local weather change to geopolitical dangers in a speech on Tuesday morning. Warming temperatures and the upper danger of pure catastrophe are “more fundamental” than these posed by terrorists, he’ll say, in accordance to ready remarks.
COP29 will happen simply days after the US election, which may lead to former president Trump pushing for the world’s greatest economic system and second largest polluter to once more withdraw from the Paris settlement on local weather change and stall on local weather motion.
One of the thorniest points diplomats and negotiators will tackle is how to marshal finance from richer nations in order that poorer ones on the frontline of local weather change can adapt to it.
Azerbaijan is due to announce its personal contributions to a brand new Climate Finance Action Fund with a $1bn goal, capitalised by fossil-fuel producing international locations and firms, who will make voluntary funds linked to the amount of oil, gas and coal they produce.