Prominent figures make appeal to the United Nations as Azerbaijan, a major oil and gas producer, hosts Cop29
Prominent scientists and politicians are calling on the United Nations to not allow the UN climate conference to be hosted in countries that do not support the phase out of fossil fuels.
The appeal, in a letter published on Friday during the Cop29 conference in Baku, comes as climate groups released an analysis showing at least 1,773 lobbyists from the oil, gas, and coal industries were officially accredited to attend the UN meeting in Azerbaijan.
In Baku, the coalition Kick Big Polluters Out, which is supported by organisations like Transparency International, Global Witness, Greenpeace, and the Climate Action Network, released its analysis on Friday using publicly accessible data from the UN Climate Secretariat, it said.
In an open letter to UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell, the signatories said the UN must apply strict admission criteria to exclude countries as hosts that do not support the unanimously decided shift away from coal, oil, and gas.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev praised the climate-damaging energy sources oil and gas as a “gift from God” at this year’s Cop29 conference.
The letter’s signatories include Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, global ambassador of the Club of Rome, Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as well as former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon.
They warned that global warming has not been stopped even after 28 annual climate conferences. Rather, they said that warming to more than 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100 could no longer be ruled out.
They want mechanisms to hold countries accountable when they ignore climate targets and commitments. Additionally, they stressed the need for “smaller, more frequent, and solution-oriented meetings” and called for limiting conference access.
The appeal comes as the coalition Kick Big Polluters Out in Baku noted that during last year’s Cop28 in Dubai, the capital of a Gulf State oil-producing nation, a record 2,450 fossil lobbyists attended, according to a previous analysis.
