Germany accuses Azerbaijan of backing oil and fuel hijack of COP29

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Germany has accused COP29 host Azerbaijan of backing an try by fossil gas producing international locations to hijack the world’s most necessary local weather summit as talks ran nearly a day late.

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s overseas affairs minister, warned {that a} “few fossil gas states” have been trying a “geopolitical energy play” in Baku, the place nearly 200 international locations are debating a brand new local weather finance objective and easy methods to make progress on the shift away from oil, fuel and coal.

A number of individuals concerned within the talks instructed the Monetary Occasions that international locations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia have been trying to dam any references to advancing final yr’s settlement to transition away from fossil fuels.

“It’s clear who’s pulling the strings of the COP29 presidency,” mentioned one negotiator.

The UN local weather summit has been overshadowed by Donald Trump’s US presidential victory. His election has stoked fears that international local weather motion could be rolled again in a yr that’s anticipated to be the most well liked on report.

Talking in Baku, Baerbock mentioned oil and fuel producing nations have been taking part in a recreation on the “backs of the poorest and most weak international locations”.

“We because the European Union won’t settle for a deal that comes on the expense of those that undergo most from the local weather disaster,” she mentioned.

“We won’t permit essentially the most weak to be ripped off by the few fossil gas producing international locations, who at this second have the backing of the COP29 presidency.”

Azerbaijan depends on fossil fuels for export revenue to assist its financial system whereas Ilham Aliyev, its president, even praised the nation’s “God-given” oil and fuel in speeches in the course of the opening days of COP29.

The COP29 presidency workforce, led by ecology and pure sources minister Mukhtar Babayev, declined to remark. Saudi Arabia didn’t reply to a request for remark and an individual near Russia’s delegation mentioned that they had no remark.

Final week, G20 international locations didn’t make express point out of dumping fossil fuels within the leaders’ declaration at a gathering in Rio de Janeiro. In New York in September, Saudi Arabia and different oil and fuel producers have been additionally accused of attempting to dam a reference to fossil fuels within the so-called UN Pact for the Future.

In Baku, rich western international locations are underneath hearth over a proposal for $250bn in local weather finance that was branded insufficient and insulting by poorer international locations.

Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomèz, Panama’s head of delegation, mentioned the EU was taking part in “recreation[s]” by guaranteeing the negotiations dragged on.

“That is what they all the time do,” he mentioned on Saturday. “They break us on the final minute . . . they push and push it and push it till the negotiators depart, till we’re drained, till we’re delusional from not consuming, from not sleeping.”

That finance objective, which is aimed toward serving to growing international locations shift to inexperienced power and adapt to a warming world, was anticipated to be elevated to $300bn in negotiations on Saturday night.

However within the stadium the place the summit is happening, protesters chanted “No deal is best than a foul deal” and urged the G77 group of growing nations to stroll away. The G77 has known as for at the very least $500bn in finance.

Baerbock rejected the criticism of the low provide, arguing that no sum of money could be sufficient with out emission reductions.