Germany accuses Azerbaijan of backing oil and gasoline 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 essential local weather summit as talks ran nearly a day late. 

Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s international affairs minister, warned {that a} “few fossil fuel states” had been trying a “geopolitical power play” in Baku, the place nearly 200 international locations are debating a brand new local weather finance purpose and how one can make progress on the shift away from oil, gasoline and coal.

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

“It is clear who is 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 world local weather motion could be rolled again in a yr that’s anticipated to be the most well liked on file.

Talking in Baku, Baerbock mentioned oil and gasoline producing nations had been taking part in a sport on the “backs of the poorest and most vulnerable countries”.

“We as the European Union will not accept a deal that comes at the expense of those who suffer most from the climate crisis,” she mentioned. 

“We will not allow the most vulnerable to be ripped off by the few fossil fuel producing countries, who at this moment have the backing of the COP29 presidency.”

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

The COP29 presidency crew, led by ecology and pure assets 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 specific 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 gasoline producers had been additionally accused of making an attempt 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 “game[s]” by making certain the negotiations dragged on.

“This is what they always do,” he mentioned on Saturday. “They break us at the last minute . . . they push and push it and push it until the negotiators leave, until we’re tired, until we’re delusional from not eating, from not sleeping.”

That finance purpose, which is aimed toward serving to creating international locations shift to inexperienced vitality 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 better than a bad deal” and urged the G77 group of creating nations to stroll away. The G77 has known as for a minimum of $500bn in finance. 

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