Raised on oil: Azerbaijan takes the driver’s seat in global climate talks but will ‘black gold’ legacy threaten its green transition?

While that would also tidy up Azerbaijan’s own national greenhouse gases emissions count, it only moves a polluting problem to those buying its gas exports. 

Climate accounting does not typically count exported emissions, meaning the pollution burden falls on countries that import and consume energy.

It is why there should be increased scrutiny on the entire energy network, from producer to seller to buyer, much of which has a strong Western footprint, said Ms Kate Watters, director of Crude Accountability, a human rights and environmental watchdog for the Caspian Basin.

She has deep concerns about the allegations of Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record, lack of transparency on key issues and entrenched levels of corruption, byproducts of a resource-heavy, largely state-controlled economy.

“I think one of the most important things to understand is our responsibility as Western consumers of fossil fuels in what’s happening in Azerbaijan right now,” she said, mentioning the extensive investments from companies like BP, Total and ExxonMobil, Europe’s closer dependence on its energy exports and international green funding flowing to renewable power projects that are actually substituting in for national gas powering Azerbaijan’s oil sector.

“If we look at the supply chain from start to finish, are they just exporting their carbon emissions to Europe? Does that really answer the questions about how we get to a greener future, a future with fewer carbon emissions? No, it just pushes the pieces around,” she said.

According to the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, published by Transparency International, Azerbaijan ranks 154th out of 180 countries with a score of 23 out of 100, making it one of the most corrupt countries in the world.

In October, members of the European parliament strongly condemned the “Azerbaijan regime’s longstanding domestic and extraterritorial repression of activists, journalists, opposition leaders, and others” and also labelled its “ongoing human rights abuses … incompatible with its hosting of the climate conference”.

They asked the European Commission to suspend the strategic energy partnership between the EU and Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s human rights record was also examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Working Group for the fourth time in late 2023, with 319 recommendations made.

The government agreed to adopt 185 of those, including measures related to civil and political rights, anti-corruption and national human rights legislation.

President Ilham Aliyev has previously labelled claims of corruption by his family and government as “insinuations or half truths in order to discredit the image of Azerbaijan and undermine Azerbaijan’s position”.