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COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan:
A climate conference to greenwash an anti-environmentalist, ecocidal, authoritarian, and genocidal petrostate

Azerbaijan’s economy is built on fossil fuel extraction and exports.According to the United States’ International Trade Administration’s country commercial guide, “Azerbaijan’s economy is anchored in oil and gas production, which accounted for roughly 47.8% of the country’s GDP and over 92.5 % of export revenue in 2022.” Common Dreams reports that Azerbaijan has vowed to raise gas production by a third since being chosen as the COP29 host country.

Large oil companies have a vested interest in Azerbaijan.bp (formerly known as “British Petroleum”) proudly celebrates its 30-year history of oil extraction in Azerbaijan and is “the largest foreign investor in the country.” According to Global Witness, “Oil firms bankroll Azerbaijan’s warring regime with billions in fossil fuel money.”

Azerbaijan’s oil and gas exports make money...and health problems.Azerbaijan supplies the European Union with billions of cubic meters of gas through the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline, fed by the Shah Deniz 2 gas field. According to reporting by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, residents who live near the Sangachal terminal operated by bp have “developed heart and breathing problems, conditions associated with living near flaring” gas terminals.

Oil derricks on the shore of the Caspian Sea just outside the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. Image: bymedia.net via RadioFreeEurope

Much of the money made by oil and gas exploration in Azerbaijan has gone into the pockets of the ruling Aliyev family through means of offshore shell companies, according to leaked files from the Pandora Papers and reporting by the OCCRP.Over $2.9 billion has been laundered through shell companies.According to jailed Senior Policy Analyst Gubad Ibadoghlu’s findings, the hundreds of billions of dollars made from oil and gas exports in Azerbaijan have been spent on “buying civil servants’ loyalty, glamourous sports and entertainment events, high end but not profitable real estate abroad, and western support” with an utter lack of transparency to report to the general populace.While the Aliyevs live extravagantly with their oil money, 24% of Azerbaijan’s population suffers from poverty according to the World Bank.

The Aliyev family and their assets, as exposed in the Pandora Papers. Image: OCCRP.

Azerbaijan has violently suppressed peaceful environmental protests within its borders.In Söyüdlü, a village where a manmade lake was planned for holding toxic waste from a nearby gold mine, Azerbaijani villagers protested the contamination the artificial lake would cause in their village’s water supply. In June 2023, those protestors were brutally suppressed by police who sprayed chemical irritants in the faces of elderly female protestors, according to videos and reporting by Eurasianet. In July 2023, the Council of Europe penned a letter decrying the “disproportionate use of force by police during environmental protests and restrictions to the work of human rights defenders, lawyers, and journalists” in Azerbaijan.

The police used rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters in Gadabay near Söyüdlü village. Video: AbzasMedia.

Protests inspired by the peaceful acts of civil disobedience in Söyüdlü throughout Azerbaijan have been silenced.One protestor who merely put up signs in solidarity with the protestors of Söyüdlü has had her home raided by police, according to the Feminist Peace Collective. In reporting by France24, Human Rights Watch, and Global Voices, reporters documented that climate activists are jailed and silenced for criticizing Azerbaijan’s continued policy of polluting the environment. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized Azerbaijan for suppressing the voices of environmental activists, while the Institute for War & Peace Reporting documented the detention of Azerbaijanis who raise their voices to protest environmental degradation in their country.

Ilham Aliyev. Image: Arzu Geybullayeva, via Global Voices.

What is especially nefarious is that Azerbaijan has not only suppressed the environmentalists, it has also suppressed the press from covering the story.Reporters Sans Frontières has criticized Azerbaijan for harassing, beating, and detaining journalists for covering the violent and brutal suppression of reporters and environmental activists. RSF ranks Azerbaijan 164th out of 180 countries in its 2024 World Press Freedom Index. Geneva Solutions documents how Azerbaijani dissidents who speak out about the regime’s environmental crimes are jailed and silenced.

Ilham Aliyev in front of suppressed protests. Image: Reporters Sans Frontières.

Azerbaijan has already suppressed journalists from reporting on climate talks in Azerbaijan this year.In June 2024, the Guardian UK reported the following: “At least three journalists from the UK and France have told the Guardian that they felt ‘unsafe’ after they were denied entry to the Baku Energy Week forum, despite registering with the event organisers weeks in advance.The journalists said they were not given a valid reason why they had been turned away, but they chose to leave the venue after ‘frightening’ and ‘intimidating’ encounters with the organisers.”

In the run up to this year’s COP29, Azerbaijan has used fake social media accounts on various online platforms to drown out legitimate criticism of its anti-environmentalist actions.The Guardian UK reported the following: “The Global Witness analysis uncovered 71 suspicious accounts on X. All but six were set up since May, often in bursts. All share nature-related banner and profile images, often flowers or trees, and some accounts used exactly the same images.More than half of their posts in September used the #COP29 or #COP29Azerbaijan tags and 70% of their retweets were of the official Azerbaijan Cop29 posts or other official Azerbaijan government, party or politician posts. The accounts were also part of a network, with most connected to at least six other suspicious accounts.”

Many accounts promoting Azerbaijan and Cop29 have been set up recently and are part of networks following each other. Image Composite: Guardian Design/X.

Azerbaijan made a mockery of environmentalists by using fake eco-activists to block the Lachin Corridor——Nagorno-Karabakh’s lifeline to Armenia before the region was ethnically cleansed of over 100,000 Armenians——for more than nine months in 2023.In articles published by TIME, OC Media, and Mikroskop Media, the quote-unquote “environmentalists” are shown to be paid representatives of the Aliyev regime or far-right Azerbaijani nationalists.

Ilham Aliyev and the false “eco-activists” that blockaded Artsakh for months. Image: OC Media.

Azerbaijan has polluted within its own borders during peacetime.One region of Azerbaijan is so polluted, it has been dubbed an “ecological Armageddon” in a report by Le Monde diplomatique. In Sumqaiyt, the toxic waste is still left in open piles in a city only 35 kilometers from the capital Baku where COP29 is being held.

An unnatural substance is left on the ground. Miles of miles of heavily contaminated industrial wasteland is located in Azerbaijan’s third largest city Sumqaiyt. Image: Le Monde Diplomatique.

Azerbaijan has overfarmed and poorly managed its water resources, leading to a water crisis in 2020.According to analysis by the Conflict and Environment Observatory: “Pre-conflict, Azerbaijan was in the midst of a water crisis, and control of Nagorno-Karabakh’s rich water resources may have been viewed as a benefit from any confrontation. Water infrastructure was targeted during fighting [during the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War], with some resources transferring hands.”

Islands created in the Kura River by water shortage in the territory of Salyan region (12 June 2020). Image: science.gov.az.

Azerbaijan has destroyed the environment during its war with Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh over the majority-Armenian region of Nagorno Karabakh.According to research by the Digital Forensic Research Lab, Azerbaijan dropped white phosphorus on civilian Armenian populations and forests during the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh War. White phosphorus continues to burn human flesh and organic materials until it is deprived of oxygen or is exhausted. It is classified as a Hazardous Air Pollutant by the Environmental Protection Agency and has been described by the Center for Disease Control to build up in the bodies of fish that live in waters polluted by it.

To add insult to injury, Azerbaijan’s construction projects in Karabakh are largely lining the pockets of oligarchs.Climate Change News has reported that Azerbaijan has been depleting Karabakh’s natural resources to build luxury hotels, spas, and two large airports. Lucrative construction contracts have been signed between Azerbaijan and various “friendly” British and Turkish firms have been criticized by outside economists for the contracts’ lack of transparency, reports Eurasianet.

The 5-star Shusha Hotel appeared empty when Climate Home visited in April 2024. Photo: Matteo Civillini, via Climate Home.

Azerbaijan is labeled “Authoritarian” in the 2023 Democracy Index published annually by the Economist Intelligence Unit.The Democracy Index is based on 60 indicators, grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism; functioning of government; political participation; political culture; and civil liberties. Countries are scored from 0 to 10 in five categories with the overall index rating being an average of these scores. Based on their average score, each country is classified as one of four types of regimes: “full democracies,” “flawed democracies,” “hybrid regimes,” and “authoritarian regimes.” Azerbaijan is an “authoritarian” regime ranked 130th out of 167 total countries. Another metric, the Democracy Matrix, listed Azerbaijan as a “hard autocracy” in 2020.

Azerbaijan is labeled “Not Free” in the 2024 Freedom in the World index annually prepared by Freedom House.Azerbaijan’s country score is 7/100——North Korea’s score of 3 and Afghanistan’s score of 6 are marginally worse. On almost all of the 25 indicators (10 political rights indicators and 15 civil liberties indicators), Azerbaijan earned a score of 0 out of 4. For 8 of the 25 indicators, Azerbaijan scored a 1 out of 4. Notably, an additional question was added to 2024’s Index for Azerbaijan: “Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?” For this metric, Azerbaijan earned a -2 because of its brutal anti-Armenian actions in Nagorno Karabakh.

While nominally a representational parliamentary democracy, in reality, Azerbaijan has been run by the same family who has been consolidating its power since 1993.Ilham Aliyev has been president since 2003. According to Reuters, the Azerbaijani constitution was amended by lifting the two-term presidential limit in a highly controversial referendum in 2009. In 2016, another referendum was passed to extend the president’s term from 5 to 7 years and to introduce a vice presidency. In February 2017, the president appointed his wife Merhiban as the first vice president, further consolidating the power of the ruling family. In snap elections held in April 2018, Ilham Aliyev was re-elected as president for a fourth consecutive time, this time serving a seven-year term.

Ilham Aliyev and Merhiban Aliyeva. Photo: Modified from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

As a result of Azerbaijan’s violent occupation and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh, the region is now the territory with the lowest freedom score on the 2024 Freedom in the World index with a score of minus 3.After Azerbaijan militarily seized and ethnically cleansed Nagorno Karabakh of over 100,000 indigenous Armenians in September 2023, Freedom House scored the region under Azerbaijan’s control. Azerbaijan-occupied Nagorno Karabakh earned a score of -3 by receiving the score of 0 on all 25 indicators (10 political rights indicators and 15 civil liberties indicators) and a -3 for the additional question: “Is the government or occupying power deliberately changing the ethnic composition of a country or territory so as to destroy a culture or tip the political balance in favor of another group?”

Elections in Azerbaijan are neither free nor fair.The Election Observation Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said the following about Azerbaijan’s snap elections in 7 February 2024: “The 7 February early presidential election took place in a restrictive environment, [...] it was marked by the stifling of critical voices and the absence of political alternatives. [...] While election commissions were well-resourced, important safeguards were often disregarded and substantial procedural errors and omissions were observed during the opening, voting, counting and tabulation.” After noting that 1.1 million new voters were added to the voter lists in 2024, the OSCE stated that the larger voter list “creates mistrust in the accuracy and inclusiveness of the voter register.” RFE/RL notes that opposition parties have given up trying to run in “unfair” elections.

There is no political pluralism in Azerbaijan——opposition leaders, political activists, journalists, academics, and civil society members are routinely jailed for voicing their concerns about the Aliyev regime.In reporting by Eurasianet and OC Media, reporters have revealed the Aliyev regime’s efforts to silence anyone that may tarnish Azerbaijan’s reputation abroad. Amnesty International’s statement in support of jailed academics asserts that the “targeting of journalists and activists is nothing short of an attempt to silence dissent and suppress freedom of expression, particularly of those who are advocating for peace with Armenia.” The Economist asserts that “Defeating Armenia militarily means Mr Aliyev needs a new enemy. Few know this better than Mr Samadov, a doctoral student researching ‘authoritarianism and the logic of exclusion in Azerbaijan.’ In a 2021 essay he described how the state demonises Armenians and domestic critics in parallel fashion: ‘The enemy, internal or external, must be eliminated.’” There is no free press in Azerbaijan, affirms Eurasianet.

Azerbaijan further discredits legitimate criticisms of its authoritarian regime by paying European and American politicians and journalists with lavish gifts in exchange for positive coverage with “caviar diplomacy.”In investigations by the European Stability Initiative, the Council of Europe, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Azerbaijan uses its wealth to garner support among those who are willing to shill for an authoritarian petrostate. Journalist Rasmus Canbäck writes about how his fellow Swedish colleagues who were invited on an all-expenses-paid trip to Azerbaijan “weren’t allowed to move freely, and all meetings were prearranged for them. [A participant noted] that Azerbaijani representatives had even accused Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of being ‘bought by the Armenian lobby.’”

Ilham Aliyev with a jar of caviar. Image: blankspot.se.

Azerbaijan has been deemed “genocidal” by various human rights and academic organizations.The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the International Society for Human Rights, the Center for Truth and Justice, Genocide Studies International, and the International Federation for Human Rights have all warned that Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor that starved the Armenians of Artsakh for over nine months, as well as the country’s violent takeover and ethnic cleansing of the Armenian-majority region, had the markers of genocide.

Two international jurists, Juan Ernesto Mendez and Luis Moreno Ocampo, have concluded that Azerbaijan’s 2020 and 2023 military campaigns in Nagorno-Karabakh constituted genocide.Mendez (Former Special Advisor to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide) and Ocampo (founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court) have both provided evidence of Azerbaijan’s genocidal actions while blockading the Armenians of Artsakh. Ocampo has recently described Azerbaijan’s incursions onto sovereign Armenian land——what Azerbaijan has begun calling “Western Azerbaijan”——as genocidal.

Azerbaijan’s hateful state-sponsored rhetoric towards Armenians and Armenian culture reflects genocidal intent.According to Thomas Becker of the University Network for Human Rights: “Ilham Aliyev refers to Armenians as ‘rats,’ ‘dogs,’ and ‘barbarians’ infected with a ‘virus’ for which they ‘need to be treated.’ He has repeatedly warned, ‘If [Armenians] do not want to die, then get out of Azerbaijani lands,’ which he considers to include Nagorno-Karabakh and even Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. Azerbaijani officials echo his genocidal discourse, calling ethnic Armenians a ‘cancerous tumor’ and ‘disease’ and declaring, ‘Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians.’ Aliyev’s government even issued a stamp with a soldier in a hazmat suit fumigating Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Government issued stamps by Azerbaijan fumigating Nagorno Karabakh to rid the area of Armenians. Photo: New East Digital Archive.

During Azerbaijan’s war on the civilian population of Artsakh in 2020, Azerbaijan committed heinous genocidal actions against Armenians.As documented by the University Network for Human Rights, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Human Rights Watch, Caucasus Heritage Watch, VICE News, blankspot.se, and Bellingcat, Azerbaijan arbitrarily detained civilians and soldiers, tortured those it captured, enforced the disappearance of certain individuals, unlawfully killed and mutilated the deceased, incited its population to hate Armenians, destroyed Armenian cultural heritage, and forcibly displaced Armenians from their ancestral homes.

Aliyev behind the Armenians he ethnically cleansed from Artsakh. Image: Human Rights Foundation.

Azerbaijan has refused efforts to negotiate peace with Armenia since militarily seizing Nagorno Karabakh and taking Armenian hostages.In a statement by the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, the writers assert: “Azeri officials have claimed they want ‘to make COP29 a COP of peace.’ The Lemkin Institute finds such assertions to be absurd, embarrassing, and deeply cynical, given what we all know about the Aliyev regime. If Azerbaijan truly wants to demonstrate its commitment to peacebuilding, it should start by facilitating the immediate and unconditional release of its political prisoners” of Armenian and Azerbaijani descent still held illegally in inhumane conditions. Many have criticized Azerbaijan for trying to “peacewash” its “expansionist territorial ambitions” against Armenia. The Guardian UK notes the “hypocrisy” of Azerbaijan “positioning itself as peacemaker [when it is] accused of ethnic cleansing and imprisoning opponents.”