Azerbaijani president appoints new climate affairs rep

Mukhtar Babayev has been relieved of his duties as Azerbaijan’s Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources and appointed the president's Special Representative for Climate Issues.

The relevant decrees were signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Caliber.Az reports.

Babayev was elected president of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The announcement was made by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the president of COP28, who officially handed over the leadership of the session to Babayev. COP29, held at Baku Stadium from November 11-22, 2024, was Azerbaijan’s most significant international event to date and the first time the country has hosted a COP conference.

The summit kicked off with the signing of the Host Country Agreement and other key documents between the Azerbaijani government and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat. One of the central goals of COP29 was the establishment of a New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) for climate finance. To further this aim, the COP29 presidency introduced 14 key initiatives designed to integrate climate action with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

These initiatives covered a broad spectrum of critical areas, including the development of green energy corridors, energy storage solutions, climate resilience strategies, clean hydrogen, methane reduction from organic waste, and the promotion of green digital technologies. COP29 has reached a significant agreement on climate finance, with a commitment to allocate $250 billion annually until 2035. One of the key decisions made at the conference was the adoption of the New Collective Quantified Goal. 

This decision calls for a collective effort from all parties to increase climate finance for developing countries, with the goal of mobilizing at least $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 from both public and private sources. The decision reflects proposals from developed countries to increase climate finance from the current $100 billion per year to $250 billion by 2035. This increase is aimed at supporting climate initiatives in developing nations.

By Naila Huseynova