On a hot day in June, gardeners worked tirelessly watering the flowerbeds and small lawns around the Olympic Stadium of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. Back then, the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29), the most important international event the country has ever hosted, was still months away, but the government wanted to ensure the conference was framed in green. This was despite Baku’s increasingly stifling climate and the low expectations surrounding this year’s climate talks. The stated priorities of the conference include climate finance, global energy storage capacity, and clean hydrogen. Nowhere is the goal of “transitioning away from fossil fuels” mentioned, even though it was hailed as a breakthrough at COP28 in Dubai last year. At a time when the 2024 UN Emissions Gap report indicates that a “failure to increase ambition” on climate policies would “put the world on course for a temperature increase of 2.6-3.1°C” in this century, the absence is stark.   

“It seems ironic to us to organise the COP in a country where the environmental situation is so compromised,” says Emir Abbassov of the pro-democracy organisation Nida.  

Extraction and inequality 

Connecting the stadium to Baku’s city centre is the Heydar Aliyev Boulevard, named after Azerbaijan’s late president and father of the current head of state, Ilham Aliyev, who has been in power since 2003. It is lined with futuristic skyscrapers, some of them still under construction. Among them is the 200 metre-high Socar Tower, which rises up like a blue flame and serves as the headquarters of the state-owned Azerbaijan Republic Oil Company, founded in 1992. 

Close to Baku is Bibi-Heybat, the site of the world’s first-ever offshore oil well, which started operations in 1803. Barely 15 kilometres from where COP is taking place, it demonstrates Azerbaijan’s long dependence on fossil fuels. Bibi-Heybat is also where the world’s first onshore oil drilling began, four decades after the offshore site became operational. The wealth generated by oil here has historically remained in the hands of a few local tycoons and foreign investors. Its environmental impact – as well as that of the gas industry, which came later – has meanwhile harmed local communities.  

The impacts are numerous. In its annual reports, the Oil Workers’ Rights Protection trade union has recorded many instances of oil spillage in the Caspian Sea. The organisation has also documented the effects of gas flaring on air pollution, while in the Absheron peninsula, which has seen heavy oil extraction, pollution is high, and ground quality is poor. 

Today, the climate crisis compounds the problems. Temperatures in Azerbaijan have risen sharply in recent years: from 1990 to 2020, there were 365 days in total between the months of June and August when temperatures reached 35 degrees Celsius and above; in the previous 30 years, there had been just 86 such days. The water crisis meanwhile rages on, with many rural areas, such as the Zaqatala region in the north, suffering from a years-long drought. Even some neighbourhoods in Baku, where an increasing number of people are migrating to because of its wealthier economy, were left without water last summer. 

“We do not see any serious steps in government policy with regard to this problem,” says Emir Abbassov 

Unrealistic targets  

Azerbaijan is the third petrostate in a row to host COP, after the United Arab Emirates in 2023 and Egypt in 2022. Within the framework of the 2015 Paris Accords, which aim to keep global temperature growth at 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, each country must outline its strategies for achieving this goal by 2050 in its own Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are non-binding plans to combat climate change.  

The 2023 Azerbaijani NDC states that Azerbaijan will seek to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent by 2050. However, in the document there are also doubts about whether this target can be met, especially when “taking into account the new realities after the liberation of about 20 per cent of the country’s territories from 30-year occupation” (a reference to the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the forced displacement of a majority of the Armenian population), and “plans for diversification of the economy over the next decade.” As Climate Action Tracker points out, this commitment is far too modest; it even represents a step backwards compared to the previous version of the NDC.  

“Azerbaijan is nowhere near meeting its climate targets,” says Kate Watters, director of the American NGO, Crude Accountability. “A turnaround could only happen if it seriously invested in renewable energy projects, using them to power the national grid, and not only to increase natural gas exports to Europe.” In 2022, the European Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Baku to increase gas supplies to the EU to 20 billion cubic metres annually by 2027 (in 2021, Azerbaijan supplied 8 billion cubic metres). 

According to analyses by the Asian Development Bank, Azerbaijan’s economy remains heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Over the past two decades, oil and gas have accounted for an average of 40 per cent of GDP and 90 per cent of total export earnings. The low-skilled labour force, restrictions on market competition, and the strong presence of state-owned enterprises have limited the growth of the many private companies outside the oil sector. Fossil fuel revenues have financed the expansion of the rest of the economy, making economic growth highly dependent on volatile energy prices. The Asian Development Bank’s September 2024 forecast places Azerbaijan last for GDP growth in the region, with a projected growth rate of 2.7 per cent compared to Armenia’s 6 per cent and Georgia’s 7 per cent.  

“A big branding operation” 

On the Baku waterfront, near the folkloristic Carpet Museum and the Flame Towers, lies the COP promotion stand. Here, young volunteers guide viewers to interactive screens that showcase all the renewable energy projects underway in the country. They are helping them to discover the new “green” Azerbaijan. 

In recent years, the Azerbaijani government has been making great efforts to diversify its oil-state image, focusing especially on renewable energy. While in 2023, renewables accounted for 7 per cent of its total energy use, the government plans to increase this to 30 per cent by 2030, thanks to projects such as the Garadagh photovoltaic park, which came into operation in October 2023, and the Khizhi-Absheron wind farm. 

However, experts doubt whether these projects will cut emissions. According to Jeffrey Dunn, research coordinator at Crude Accountability, “the rhetoric in Azerbaijan is: ‘We will help reduce emissions’. But in reality the energy created by these projects will be used for domestic consumption so that more gas can be exported towards the EU. It is a win-win. These renewable projects will only shift emissions elsewhere.”  

On the contrary, Dunn predicts an increase in emissions: as more gas will be transported, more leaks will be registered out of the pipelines. This is why the likes of Crude Accountability accuse the Azerbaijani government of greenwashing. 

A new photovoltaic plant in Jabrayil, located in the part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region “recaptured” by Azerbaijani troops in the 2020 war, will contribute to the same strategy of shifting emissions abroad. The project is run by BP. According to Azerbaijan’s Deputy Energy Minister Elnur Soltanov, Shafag will power the Sangachal terminal, in line with President Aliyev’s plan to expand the country’s energy exports. 

From December 2022 to the end of September 2023, the Lachin corridor, the only access point to the predominantly Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, saw dozens of protesters, believed to be supported by the Aliyev government, demonstrating under what the UN called a “fake pretext of environmental concerns”. Nearly 120,000 ethnic Armenian residents were left without food, medicine, and essential goods. On 19 September, Azerbaijani troops attacked the local population, forcing it to flee. While the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Azerbaijan, the European Commission did not take a step back on its gas agreements.  

According to the ICC’s chief prosecutor at the time, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the blockade of the Lachin corridor, as well as the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, represent a form of genocide. “Aliyev is promoting ‘a COP for peace’. He pretends to be the champion of human rights while he has committed genocide, a champion of climate change while he relies on fossil energy. It’s a big branding operation.” 

The Baku government decided to use green energy to reshape its image in Nagorno-Karabakh too. In 2021 Baku signed an agreement to make Nagorno-Karabakh a Green Energy Zone, and following the annexation in 2023, Aliyev announced plans to build around 40 hydroelectric power plants in the region, adding to the at least four already there. For these green projects, Aliyev is trying to attract foreign investment.  

Alternative gas corridors 

The 2022 Memorandum of Understanding with Baku came after the European Union declared its intention to phase out Russian gas following the invasion of Ukraine. 

With the gas transit agreement between Kiev and Moscow due to expire at the end of this year, Azerbaijan is now also being seen as a possible new supplier of gas to Ukraine. According to Azerbaijani government officials, the request is to supply gas through a pipeline that currently transports Russian gas through Ukraine. It is unclear whether the plan involves the export of Azerbaijani gas through Russia, given that the pipeline runs through Russian territory, or whether Azerbaijan will buy gas from Russia and then ship it. Asked about this possibility, a European Commission spokesperson said that “Russian gas supplies to the EU are not covered by EU sanctions. Still, it is worth recalling that all 27 Member States agreed in the [March 2022] Versailles Declaration to phase out Russian fossil fuels as soon as possible.” 

Furthermore, plans are underway to connect the Caucasian country with Eastern Europe. This North-South Gas Corridor would mainly use existing pipelines through Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine but would require an expansion in the capacity of some sections. An agreement between Greece and Bulgaria was first signed in 2022, and Slovakia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined in January this year.  

Can Azerbaijan produce all this gas? 

Aside from questions about the motives behind Baku’s “green” projects, the agreement with Europe also sparks doubts about Azerbaijan’s ability to produce all the gas that it has promised. According to data compiled by Rystad Energy and analysed by Global Witness, Azerbaijan plans to increase its fossil fuel production by one-third – or about 12 billion cubic metres – over the next decade.  

According to Rystad Energy, Azerbaijan will extract 411 billion cubic metres of gas from the Shah Deniz field alone – one of the largest in the world with over 1 trillion cubic metres of gas – in the next 10 years. This will generate 781 million tonnes of CO2, more than what Germany and the Netherlands together emit in a year. The field is connected to the Sangachal terminal, where the hydrocarbons are processed and then exported abroad, mainly through the Southern Gas Corridor, which reaches the Apulian coast via the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). 

Some experts have questioned the possibility of reaching the 20 billion cubic metres of gas promised to Europe by 2027. Azerbaijan’s reserves cannot be extracted fast enough. At the same time, domestic demand for gas is not projected to decline to a point that would allow exports to meet the targets. Since the signing of the memorandum in 2022, there has been an increase in exports to the EU, from 8 billion cubic metres in 2021 to 12 in 2023. 

There are, however, other elements to take into account. Gubad Ibadoghlu is an Azerbaijani economist and researcher at the London School of Economics, a critic of the fossil fuel industry and a prominent defender of human rights and anti-corruption efforts in Azerbaijan. Analysing the forecasts of the international rating agency Fitch Ratings, Ibadoghlu stated that natural gas production in the country is expected to evolve in a wave-like manner until 2032: if in the interval between 2023 and 2025 gas production increases, it will start to decrease in 2026, only resuming growth from 2030.  

In order to overcome the technical limitations, in July 2024 Azerbaijan asked the EU to commit to longer gas contracts in order to give certainty to investors. “This is a contradiction first of all with respect to our European agenda,” says Francesco Sassi, a researcher in geopolitics and energy markets at the Italian think tank Ricerche Industriali ed Energetiche (RIE). “On the one hand, the EU would like to bring about the complete elimination of fossil fuel consumption in the coming decades, but on the other hand it keeps trying to urge these countries to supply more of those.” 

Ibadoghlu concludes that “Europe’s goal of replacing Russian gas imports with Azerbaijani gas is not realistic in the short term.” He adds that “the only possible way for the Caucasic country to fulfil its obligations by 2027 would be to purchase additional gas from Russia and Turkmenistan. This would be completely counterproductive, given the political logic of the EU-Azerbaijan energy memorandum.”  

On 23 July 2023, around the same time he published his research, Idaboghlu was arrested by the Azerbaijani authorities for alleged counterfeiting of money and “religious extremism”. He remained in prison until April 2024, when he was released under house arrest. The economist suffers from major health problems, including diabetes and a heart condition, which severely worsened during his detention, when he was denied adequate health care.  

As of last June, more than 300 opposition figures have been arrested and are being held in Azerbaijani jails, where according to Human Rights Watch they are subjected to systematic violence and torture. Some members of the pro-democracy group Nida were also arrested. Aliyev Araz, a 30-year-old university teacher and member of Nida, spent almost a month in prison and is currently banned from leaving the country. “We have the impression that in the eyes of the world, Azerbaijani oil is more important than human rights,” says Araz. “Oil and gas increase the profit of the elite, but human rights, the environment, labour issues, and gender issues remain under the burden of oil and gas, and no one cares about it.”  

Azerbaijan ranks 154 out of 180 countries on corruption, according to Transparency International, and is defined as “not free” by Freedom House, which measures civil and political liberties. Dominic Eagleton, Senior Campaigner with Global Witness, expresses his concerns that in moving forward with its gas agreement, “the EU is making the same mistakes that it did with Russia, cosying up to violent dictators”.  

This investigation was carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe, and is published in partnership with Irpi Media.