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https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/17/cop29-at-a-crossroads-in-azerbaijan-with-focus-on-climate-finance>
"Oil is inescapable in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The smell of it greets
the visitor on arrival and from the shores of the Caspian Sea on which the city
is built the tankers are eternally visible. Flares from refineries near the
centre light up the night sky, and you do not have to travel far to see fields
of “nodding donkeys”, small piston pump oil wells about 6 metres (20ft) tall,
that look almost festive in their bright red and green livery.
It will be an interesting setting for the gathering of the 29th UN climate
conference of the parties, which will take place at the Olympic Stadium in
November.
Mukhtar Babayev, the minister of ecology for Azerbaijan, who will chair the
fortnight-long Cop climate summit, likes to position the country as at the
crossroads of the world. He says it can provide a bridge between the wealthy
global north and the poor global south; as a former Soviet bloc country,
between east and west; and between its fellow oil and gas producers and the
consuming countries that provide its export market.
Azerbaijan is where the world’s first oil wells were dug in the 1840s, more
than a decade before the US dug their first well in Pennsylvania. It is one of
the most fossil-fuel dependent economies: oil and gas make up 90% of its
exports and provide 60% of the government’s budget.
This brought riches. “Oil and, more recently, gas have been largely responsible
for the remarkable rise in living standards in Azerbaijan since the late
1990s,” according to the International Energy Agency.
But the country is moving to renewable energy, with plans for a big expansion
of wind and solar energy. An interconnector is planned to carry this low-carbon
power to eastern Europe, under the Black Sea to Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
“Azerbaijan would like to share our experience,” Babayev said in an interview
in Baku. “We would like to invite all the countries, especially the fossil fuel
producing countries, to be together in this process. Because we understand our
responsibility. We think that we can do more, and together.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
