Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, which is hosting this year’s UN climate conference, repeated today the expression “God’s gift” that he has used in the past to describe hydrocarbons, a source of great income for his country.
“Call me when I say it’s a gift from God. I want to repeat it here today, before this audience,” Aliyev said at the opening of the COP29 meeting of world leaders.
“Every natural resource – oil, natural gas, air, sun or silver, copper – are natural resources and we should not blame the countries that have them and offer them to the markets because the markets need them”, explained the Azeroth president.
As the country hosting COP29 “we will also be ardent supporters of the green transition (…) But at the same time we must be realistic”, he estimated.
Without specifically referring to the USA, Aliyev criticized “the ‘fake news media’ of the country which is the world’s first producer of gas and oil and which produces 30 times more oil than Azerbaijan” and “characterizes us as an oil-producing state. It would be better if he looked in the mirror.”
This characterization “is not fair and demonstrates a lack of culture and political knowledge,” Aliyev added, noting that Azerbaijan accounts for 0.7% of global oil production and 0.9% of natural gas production.
Since it was announced that Azerbaijan will host COP29, “we have been the target of a coordinated and well-planned campaign of disinformation and blackmail by the Western media, by so-called independent non-governmental organizations and by some politicians,” he complained.
Aliyev first described the country’s gas reserves as a “gift from God” in April. A few months later Mukhtar Babayev, president of COP29 and Minister of Environment and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, had announced that his country would increase natural gas production, “a transitional energy” to cope with international demand “in parallel” with its investments in renewable energy sources.
Azerbaijan is the second oil-producing country to host and chair a COP, following the United Arab Emirates last year.
In addition, Babayev received intense criticism as he was previously an executive of Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company Socar.
In this Friday, June 19, 2015, file photo, skyscrapers stand in the background as an oil pump operates on a nearby hill in Baku, Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan oil company officials say one worker has been killed and nine others are missing after part of their offshore oil rig was blown off course by strong winds. The state-owned oil company, known as SOCAR, said a 150-meter (490-foot) section of runway fell into the Caspian Sea amid 90 mph (145 kph) winds and swept away 10 workers on Thursday, Dec. 14, 2016. ( (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
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