Azerbaijan

COP 29 president pushed decisions despite objections, citing procedural norms

The final version not only keeps the role of public financing ambiguous but also tries to put the burden of making contributions on developing countries

Latest version of the Global Climate Finance plan fails on most counts to meet India and other developing countries' demands or expectations

Tata Power on Thursday said it has signed an initial pact with Asian Development Bank (ADB) to evaluate financing worth USD 4.25 billion for its several strategic projects. A memorandum of understanding has been signed with ADB at Baku, Azerbaijan, Tata Power said in a statement. "The MoU has been signed evaluate financing for its several strategic projects aimed at enhancing India's power infrastructure and promoting renewable and clean energy," it said. The total estimated project cost is about USD 4.25 billion, Tata Power said. The MoU outlines the evaluation of financing for several key ongoing projects such as the 966-MW solar wind hybrid project and pumped hydro storage project and other projects in the pipeline around energy transition, decarbonisation, and battery storage as well as ongoing financing for capex towards strengthening the distribution networks. Tata Power CEO and Managing Director Praveer Sinha said, "Collaboration with ADB is a crucial step as we explore ...

A new draft text released early Thursday which will form the basis of any deal reached at United Nations climate talks on money for developing countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change left out a crucial sticking point: how much wealthy nations will pay. Negotiators at the talks known as COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, are trying to close the gap between the $1.3 trillion the developing world says is needed in climate finance and the few hundred billion that richer nations have been prepared to pay. But the draft text "presents two extreme ends of the aisle without much in between", said Li Shuo, Asia Society Policy Institute Director. Other than capturing the ground standing of both sides, this text hardly does anything more. Rob Moore, Associate Director at European think tank E3G said that negotiators need to make a huge amount of progress over the next few days and the road to agreement will need to see rapid and candid engagement, with numbers on the ...

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday called for USD 6.8 trillion in climate funding for developing countries by 2030. Sharif was speaking at a climate finance roundtable hosted by Pakistan during the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan's capital Baku. According to live coverage of his speech by Pakistani TV channels, the prime minister stressed that developing countries were facing huge climate challenges but were often left without adequate resources to meet them. We need urgent climate finance to tackle issues brought by environmental changes, Sharif said, as he asked the developed countries to fulfil promises that have remained largely unmet despite repeated commitments. Developing countries require USD 6.8 trillion in financing by 2030 to manage the impacts of climate change effectively, the premier said. He pointed out that while a climate finance goal of USD 100 billion annually was set in 2009, increasing this target is now crucial as the

Most G20 members, including the US, Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, need to significantly step up climate action, according to a Climate Accountability Matrix launched at COP29 here on Tuesday. The Climate Accountability Matrix (CAM) is a first-of-its-kind assessment tool from the Global South to analyse countries' performance in climate aspects beyond mitigation, including adaptation and means of implementation. As against the rich nations, countries from the Global South, such as India and South Africa have made significant efforts in climate action by actively participating in key agreements, undertaking reasonable efforts domestically and adhering to their obligations, the CAM, featured in a report by independent, New Delhi-based think tank the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), found. The CEEW report Are G20 Countries Delivering on Climate Goals? Tracking Progress on Commitments to Strengthen the Paris Agreement unveiled at the COP29 here introduces

Azerbaijan's oil and gas revenues accounted for 35 per cent of its economy in 2023, down from 50 per cent two years earlier. The government says these revenues will decline to 22 per cent by 2028

At the COP29 climate summit, prominent voices in the climate action arena voiced a call for greater accountability, real climate finance, and transparent data from developed countries and called for USD 1 trillion per year in cross-border finance to developing countries. Avinash Persaud, Special Advisor on Climate Change to the President, Inter-American Development Bank from the Inter-American Development Bank, highlighted the enormous financial need for climate adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage. We need an NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal) that is relevant to actual climate finance needs, he stated, calling for USD 1 trillion per year in cross-border finance to developing countries. Persaud also noted that transparency is critical to finance accountability, arguing that clear data on financial flows and impact is essential. He cautioned, however, that loss and damage finance should be grant-based and separate from adaptation and mitigation to ensure funds reach the m

A year after countries agreed to triple global renewable energy capacity to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030, a new report on Tuesday revealed that national targets still only aim for a collective doubling of capacity in the next six years. The report by global energy think tank Ember showed only eight countries have updated their renewable targets in the last 12 months, resulting in just a four-GW increase in overall renewable energy targets globally. The report analysed national 2030 renewable capacity targets for 96 countries and the EU as a bloc. These countries collectively account for 96 per cent of the world's renewable capacity, 95 per cent of global electricity sector demand and 94 per cent of global power sector emissions. Of the 96 countries, 83 have renewable capacity targets for 2030. At the UN's climate conference in December 2023 in Dubai, world leaders reached a historic agreement to triple global renewables capacity by 2030. The International Energy Agency (IEA) and ...

As representatives from nearly 200 countries, along with hundreds of journalists, arrived in Azerbaijan in November for the UN climate conference known this year as COP29, they bring with them a level of scrutiny the hosts aren't accustomed to and don't often tolerate. Azerbaijan has had a poor human rights record for many years and the government has regularly targeted journalists, activists and independent politicians. President Ilham Aliyev and his administration are accused by human rights organisations of spearheading an intensifying crackdown on freedom of speech ahead of the climate summit, including against climate activists and journalists. Aliyev's father, Haidar, ruled Azerbaijan from 1993 until he died in 2003 and Ilham took over. Both suppressed dissent as the country of almost 10 million people on the Caspian Sea basked in growing wealth from huge oil and natural gas reserves. Elections since independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s haven't been regarded as ful

Climate activist Greta Thunberg on Monday attended a rally in Georgia to protest against Azerbaijan hosting the annual United Nations climate talks. Thunberg and scores of other activists who rallied in Tbilisi, the capital of the South Caucasus nation, argued that Azerbaijan doesn't deserve to host the climate talks because of its repressive policies. UN climate talks, called COP29, opened Monday in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, a major oil producer where the world's first oil well was drilled. Thunberg described Azerbaijan as a repressive, occupying state, which has committed ethnic cleansing, and which is continuing cracking down on Azerbaijani civil society". She charged that the Caspian Sea nation has used the summit as a chance to greenwash their crimes and human rights abuses. "We can't give them any legitimacy in this situation, which is why we are standing here and saying no to greenwashing and no to the Azerbaijani regime, she said. Azerbaijan has committed to clean

The acronym dominating this year's summit is NCQG - which stands for the New Collective Quantified Goal

Private-sector climate finance accounted for 20 per cent of the funds mobilised till 2022. Accelerating this source of funding will require addressing challenges on multiple fronts

Azerbaijan has purchased multi-role JF-17 Block III fighter jets from Pakistan reportedly under a USD 1.6 billion deal, a media report said on Friday. A contract for the sale of JF-17 Block-III fighter aircraft to Azerbaijan was signed recently, the Pakistan Army said in a statement. It is believed the agreement was inked in February this year, the Dawn newspaper reported. Reports in Azerbaijan media have claimed the aircraft were acquired under a USD 1.6 billion deal for an unspecified number of jets, armament, and training. The jets have already been integrated into the arsenal of Azerbaijan's Air Force, Azerbaijan's presidency said in a statement after President Ilham Aliyev was formally presented with the aircraft at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport on Wednesday. At the ceremony, which took place on the margins of Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition 2024 in Baku, President Aliyev was briefed about the jet's cutting-edge tactical and technical specifications, ...

Indians are jet-setting like never before, with a 32 per cent jump in multiple international trips annually. Dive into the 2024 travel trends to see how Indians are taking their wanderlust to new heig

Azerbaijan on Sunday is holding a snap parliamentary election that is the first for the country since it regained full control of a former breakaway territory in a lightning offensive last year. Previous elections since independence from the Soviet Union have not been regarded as fully free or fair, and the vote for the Milli Mejlis parliament is not expected to bring significant changes to the body that is dominated by the New Azerbaijan party of President Ilham Aliyev. Under the constitution, the election would have been held in November, but Aliyev decreed it to take place two months early because the capital of Baku will host United Nations climate talks known as COP29 that same month. Aliyev and his late father, Heydar Aliyev, have led Azerbaijan with their heavy-handed rule since 1993, suppressing dissent as the country of almost 10 million people on the shores of the Caspian Sea basked in growing wealth from its huge oil and natural gas reserves. New Azerbaijan holds 69 of t

Russian leader Vladimir Putin held talks on Monday with his Azerbaijani counterpart as part of a two-day trip to secure Moscow's under-pressure trade routes and shore up ties in the South Caucasus. Business links were high on the agenda as Putin and President Ilham Aliyev met in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, with Aliyev announcing that USD 120 million had been earmarked to boost cargo transport between the two countries. We're talking about the possibility of transporting 15 million tons of cargo per year or more, he said, adding that the two countries crossed the USD 4 billion mark for Russia-Azerbaijan turnover last year and "neither of us think that is where things will stop, Such ties are a priority for Putin, who increasingly depends on countries such as Azerbaijan to access global markets because of sanctions imposed on Moscow over Russia's war on Ukraine, said independent political scientist Zardusht Alizade. Azerbaijan is an important transit country for Russia at a time

The COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan's Baku is the world's only chance to bridge the gaps in climate action and finance which is crucial to "rebuild trust" among countries and protect lives and livelihoods, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has said. In an interview with PTI via Zoom, Scotland said it is important to have the fossil-fuel producers as allies in the fight against climate change. Azerbaijan, the host of this year's UN climate talks, is a small petrostate on the Caspian Sea. Nearly all of its exports are oil and gas. "We are nearing the cliff, the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius limit. In fact, some of our scientists say that we are there now. Our home, our planet, is literally on fire. Instead of action, we see the gaps in emissions, finance, and justice widening. It is our duty to bridge those gaps, and COP is our only chance. It comes at a moment of immeasurable urgency," Scotland said. She said rich countries promised to provide USD 100 billion (one ..

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Tuesday came a step closer toward normalising relations after a bitter conflict over territory, as experts in both countries worked to demarcate their boundaries and the first border marker was placed. The two nations are working toward a peace treaty after Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province that had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the 1990s. A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan retaking large parts of the breakaway region, and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh's Armenian authorities to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian forces. Several days ago, Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement over a stretch of border that would cut though four Armenian villages in the Tavush province, meaning that Armenia would cede some territory to Azerbaijan. Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities on Tuesday announced that the first border marker was installed