Azerbaijan president lauds fossil fuels, knifes Western ‘hypocrisy’ in COP29 opener

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The petrostate autocrat and host of this year’s COP29 climate talks, Ilham Aliyev, used his opening address to gripe at hypocritical Western governments who buy his gas and lecture him about torching the planet.

“Unfortunately double standards, a habit to lecture other countries and political hypocrisy became kind of modus operandi for some politicians, state-controlled NGOs and fake news media in some Western countries,” Aliyev said.

Opening speeches at the annual COP climate conferences rarely contain such frank and unsparing political attacks, nor such open fossil fuel defenses — especially not by the host nation.

Oil and gas, Aliyev said, are “a gift of the God” — just the same as any other natural resource.

“Countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them,” he proclaimed. “The people need them.”

It’s the second straight year that a fossil fuel-dependent nation has hosted COP. Last year, the United Arab Emirates played host but mounted a less belligerent case for fossil fuels, saying only that they would remain essential to the global economy for some time.

Aliyev took particular aim at European countries that have readily signed deals to expand their purchasing of Azerbaijani gas in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“It was not our idea,” he said. “It was a proposal of the European Commission.” He described his meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in July 2022, when the EU signed a deal with Azerbaijan to double gas supplies from the country.

“They needed our gas due to the changed geopolitical situation and they asked us to help,” the president said.

A Commission spokesperson did not comment on Aliyev’s speech. The European Union has been pushing hard for the Baku talks to reiterate and strengthen a deal struck last year to phase out fossil fuels.

Azerbaijan’s economy is heavily reliant on oil and gas production. In 2022, it accounted for almost half of the country’s GDP and 92.5 percent of export revenue, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.

“As president of COP29, of course, we will be a strong advocate for green transition and we are doing it,” said Aliyev. “But at the same time, we must be realistic.”

Aliyev also slammed U.S. media for calling Azerbaijan a “petrostate” when their country is the number one oil and gas producer on Earth.

He finished with a swipe at civil society groups who called for a boycott of COP29 due to Azerbaijan’s repressive government and fossil fuel footprint.

“I have bad news for them,” the mustachioed president said, to rising applause in the room. “We have 72,000 registered participants from 196 countries. Among them 80 presidents, vice presidents and prime ministers. So the world gathered in Baku, and we say to the world: Welcome to Azerbaijan.”