Azerbaijan is using COP29 to ‘peacewash’ its global image

Azerbaijan is hosting the next UN climate summit, Cop29, in November. Their proposed agenda omits discussions on phasing out fossil fuels and excludes civil society participation. This is not a surprise. Azerbaijan has recently increased oil and gas production, and aims to diversify its economy by expanding mining.

The country has instead called for a global truce to coincide with the conference. In an open letter on September 21, the president of Cop29, Mukhtar Babayev, wrote: “[Cop29] is a unique chance to bridge divides and find paths towards lasting peace … The devastation of ecosystems and pollution caused by conflicts worsen climate change and undermine our efforts to safeguard the planet.”

Azerbaijan is positioning itself as a peacemaker. But this stands in stark contrast to the country’s record of military aggression, human rights abuses and violations of international law, which have left it facing allegations of genocide. Azerbaijan is using Cop29 both to “greenwash” and “peacewash” its global image, while in fact it still has expansionist territorial ambitions.

In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a border region claimed by both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The war resulted in more than 7,000 casualties, with Azerbaijan reclaiming most of the territories it had lost in previous conflicts. A ceasefire was brokered by Russia, but tensions persisted.

In 2023, Azerbaijan again launched a military operation and swiftly regained control of the rest of the region. The offensive forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee and Nagorno-Karabakh, which had declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, was officially dissolved in January 2024. A new investigation has shown that many homes in the region have since been looted.

^{The landlocked mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh was the subject of a longstanding territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Nemanja Cosovic/Shutterstock}

Two international jurists, Juan Ernesto Mendez and Luis Moreno Ocampo, have concluded that Azerbaijan’s 2020 and 2023 military campaigns in Nagorno-Karabakh constituted genocide.

Mendez highlighted that Azerbaijan’s strategy was to inflict “serious bodily or mental harm” on Armenians. And Ocampo emphasised the use of starvation, denial of medical aid and forced displacement. He compared Azerbaijan’s tactics to the Armenian Genocide during the first world war and the also to the Holocaust.

Azerbaijani forces reportedly used sexual violence systematically against Armenians during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, circulating messages encouraging the rape and murder of Armenian women. And rights organisations have also provided harrowing accounts of the physical and psychological abuse endured by hundreds of Armenian hostages still being held.

Many elements of the conflict remain unresolved. But speaking from a position of military weakness, the Armenian prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, proposed a peace treaty in May 2024. This involved conceding to Azerbaijan’s key demands, including that Nagorno-Karabakh should be recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

Despite these concessions, Azerbaijan has refused to engage in peace talks. It has instead made a series of new demands, which include changes to the Armenian constitution.

^{Azeri servicemen attend a military parade in the former capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, known in Azerbaijan as Khankendi. Stringer / EPA}

Azerbaijan is also playing a role in conflicts elsewhere. Two days before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow and Baku signed an agreement that Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, declared “brings our relations to the level of an alliance”. The Russo-Azeri alliance has made Azerbaijan a critical conduit in breaking western sanctions.

Russian oil exports to Azerbaijan quadrupled after the invasion, allowing Azerbaijan to meet its domestic energy needs and export the rest. In fact, Azerbaijan’s general trade with Russia increased by 17.5% in 2023, reaching US$4.3 billion (£3.2 billion).

Beyond the attempts at peacewashing, Azerbaijan’s hosting of Cop29 is a clear case of greenwashing. Azerbaijan is reliant on fossil fuel production, and has not committed to phasing out oil and gas.

The country is, for its part, trying to attract foreign investment in renewable energy as a means of diversifying its economy. BP signed an agreement with Azerbaijan in 2021 to build a solar power plant in Jabrayil, near Nagorno-Karabakh. And other international investors, including companies from the United Arab Emirates, are also involved in solar projects in the Baku region.

But the real source of economic diversification is mining – an industry that is largely owned by Aliyev’s family. Nagorno-Karabakh’s immense mineral resources, which include gold, silver and copper, have been exploited since Azerbaijan regained control of the region in 2020.

Cracking down on dissent

The Azerbaijani regime is a discriminatory dictatorship. Caucasus Heritage Watch, a research programme that monitors endangered cultural heritage in the South Caucasus, has documented the destruction of thousands of Christian heritage sites throughout Azerbaijan. And there has been systematic discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community.

There has also been a crackdown on internal dissent ahead of Cop29, with many activists and political opponents facing arrest or harassment. Environmental protests, including a demonstration in 2023 against the construction of a dam to enable mining in the country’s west, have been violently suppressed.

High-profile figures including Dr Gubad Ibadoghlu, a prominent anti-corruption activist and senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, have been arrested. At least 25 journalists and activists are also being held on politically motivated charges.

Media outlets critical of the regime, such as Abzas Media, Toplum TV and Kanal 13, have also come under intense pressure or have been closed. And independent journalists and civil society activists are excluded from Cop29.

Azerbaijan’s so-called “caviar diplomacy” is the reason you may not have not heard about all this. This strategy has involved courting western journalists and officials, with whose tacit help Azerbaijan has been able to largely shield itself from scrutiny and attract European infrastructure investments.

Aliyev has been consistent in his rhetoric that Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, is an “Azerbaijani city”. This reflects a broader strategy of historical revisionism and genocide denial, aimed at reclaiming lands based on pre-Soviet borders.

These territorial ambitions are postponed while Cop29 takes place. But the conference could well be the prelude to the renewal of war in the South Caucasus.