By Ben Aris
Aliyev roasts the West for double standards as COP29 goes off the rails
Azerbaijan is being slated for failing to lead the COP29 summit, which was expected to disappoint even before it started.
Given the job at the last minute as Ukraine and Russia’s supporters couldn’t agree on a neutral venue, the government was only given one year to prepare instead of the usual two, but even after the event started, participants are complaining that Azeri negotiators are few on the ground, and the government seems more interested in cutting gas deals than stopping global warming.
That perception has been made worse by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev’s provocative opening speech, where he said “gas is a gift of God” and caused a stir at the COP29 summit when he lambasted the West with a rant against Western “hypocrisy” and its colonialists attitudes.
Two days later, he tore into France and the Netherlands for what he described as “repression” and ongoing “colonial rule”, as well as singling out EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who likened the emerging world to a “jungle” in an arrogant statement last year.
‘What can we expect from the European Parliament and PACE if Europe’s leading diplomat Josep Borrel called Europe a garden and the rest of the world a jungle. Well, if we are a jungle, then stand aside and do not interfere in our internal affairs!’ Aliyev said in the conclusion of his emotional speech.
Aliyev’s remarks tally closely with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent Valdai speech, where the Russian president reiterated his “multipolar” world view and also harped on about the West’s colonialist attitudes and the two-track world, where the rich demean to “lead” the developing markets, but frequently ignore its own values. The Global South have been shocked at the US and European support for what many see as genocide in Gaza by the Israelis, which stand in sharp contrast to their “principled” support of Ukraine.
“Unfortunately double standards, a habit to lecture other countries and political hypocrisy became kind of modus operandi for some politicians, state-controlled NGOs and fake news media in some Western countries,” Aliyev said as cited by Politico, in an unusual shift from the diplomatic tone typical of opening COP speeches to a politically loaded diatribe against the West.
Aliyev has also been accused of double standards, as human rights groups criticised the venue for COP29, due to the Aliyev families obvious corruption. An Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) report released ahead of COP29 detailed how the family has enriched itself from the gas business, with little of the wealth it generates trickling down to the ordinary Azeris.
The EU can also be accused of double standards as during Europe’s energy crisis in 2022, after the EU was cut off from Russian gas, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen travelled to Baku to cut a gas deal with Azerbaijan, and likewise ignored Aliyev’s terrible human rights record. Currently, Azerbaijan is delivering 13bn cubic metres of gas to Europe but plans to increase that to 20 bcm in the future.
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It seems the main focus of COP29 this year is to increase the use of gas, led by Azerbaijan’s deal making, not reduce it.
“Countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them,” he declared. “The people need them.”
Emissions are currently at an all-time high and the UN warns that with current policies, the world is on track to see a “catastrophic” 3.1C increase in temperatures by the 2050 deadline, according to United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models.
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Azerbaijan’s economy remains heavily reliant on oil and gas, with fossil fuels accounting for nearly half of the nation’s GDP and 92.5% of export revenue in 2022, according to the US International Trade Administration.
