2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference

The 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly known as COP29, will be the 29th United Nations Climate Change conference. COP29 will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. Mukhtar Babayev will preside COP29.

President of COP29
Azerbaijan appointed Mukhtar Babayev as COP29 president in March 2024. Mukhtar Babayev is the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan Republic and the former Vice President for Ecology of SOCAR, Azerbaijan's national oil company.

Changes in committee
The conference's committee originally consisted of 28 men. After criticism voiced by Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and others, another two men and eleven women were added to the panel.

Background of climate conferences in Azerbaijan
In 2018, oikos Baku—a student-led organization—organized model COP23.5, an extended version of Model UN for UNFCCC to train climate change leaders in Azerbaijan.



More than 30 delegates attended and represented different countries in the deliberation process of COP23.5.

Criticism
The decision to host COP29 in Azerbaijan was criticized by human rights activists and political analysts due to Azerbaijan's human rights abuses. Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and ex-Pentagon official wrote that Azerbaijan's victory in securing its bid to host COP may backfire: "Caviar diplomacy and PR-firm messaging may sway the naïve, ignorant, or easily bought, but a light will also shine on the country's rentierism, corruption, and abuses."

Stephan Pechdimaldji, a communications strategist, wrote that "when attendees attend COP29 in Baku, they will also be visiting an area known to be 'the ecologically most devastated area in the world' by local scientists. Simon Maghakyan in a Time article, describes Azerbaijan as "a repressive petro-aggressor" whose false environmentalism "make[s] a mockery of the existential crisis we face as a species" and "undermin[es] the credibility of what is likely the most important cause in the world." According to the US government's International Trade Administration, oil and gas production comprise half of Azerbaijan's GDP and 92.5% of its export revenue in 2022.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced that she will not attend COP29 in Baku, citing the involvement of the Azerbaijani government in the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in September 2023.

Reception and Ideation
In the run up to the COP29 meeting, ministers of the Commonwealth have called for collective action on the oceans and to focus on its management.