Azerbaijani president hails COP29 as turning point for climate diplomacy

On November 24, 2024, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan shared a post on his social media accounts headlined "The COP29 is a turning point in the climate diplomacy!", marking the extraordinary achievements of the COP29 conference, Caliber.Az reports, citing Azertag. 

The post reads as follows: 

"Azerbaijan was honored to host COP29, with the unanimous support of the international community, a less than one year ago.

Despite the short period of time, Azerbaijan has ensured all necessary preparations for the conduct of smooth and efficient COP29. Without exaggeration, the Baku COP will go down in history as one of the greatest COPs.

We are especially taking pride in getting appraisal from all guests with regard to the excellent organization of the COP29 with attended 80 heads of state and government and more than 76 thousand registered participants.

Regardless of large-scale and orchestrated blackmail and slander campaign, Azerbaijan succeeded to deliver historic results in climate negotiations.

Guided by the slogan “In solidarity for a green world”, Azerbaijan acted as an honest broker and created every opportunity to facilitate negotiations in an impartial manner. Throughout the whole process, we called for an outcome that takes into account the needs of developing countries, in particular small island developing and least developed states since they bear the brunt of the climate change and face an existential threat.

We also demonstrated a solidarity with peoples and regions that suffer from environmental challenges exacerbated by colonial rule.

Azerbaijan has spared no effort to build bridges between the developed and developing countries, as a result of which the world saw an historic “Baku breakthrough”.

In Baku COP, the Loss and Damage Fund was fully operationalized. We also achieved the full functionality of the long-awaited Article 6 on carbon market.

Most importantly, the Baku COP witnessed a landmark New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which sets a new global goal to provide USD 300 billion to the developing world by 2035. The agreement will help developing nations in their fight to cope with adverse impact of climate change.

I consider the “Baku breakthrough” as a triumph of multilateralism. The COP29 is a turning point in the climate diplomacy and I believe this legacy will positively influence future global climate action. I thank all Parties, United Nations and UNFCCC for their support to Azerbaijan on the road to COP29."

By Khagan Isayev