Baku acts as game changer in COP29 despite political attempts to shun financial responsibility

EDITORIAL

COP29 successfully completed its mission in Baku, hosted by Azerbaijan. Having prepared for only 11 months, Baku received more than 70 thousand guests and coordinated the joint initiative to address global challenges by chairing the international event.

However, this still did not win the full satisfaction of some parties. Let's think for a moment about how possible it is to please everyone in life. It was not easy for Azerbaijan to attract Western countries to COP29 within the framework of the existing political processes. Let's take France, which was the first country to sign the Paris Agreement, and its non-participation was the greatest rudeness towards the international climate change conference of the United Nations.

Even on the eve of COP29, the world witnessed the attempts of the US and the European Union, the West to politicize the issue to evade responsibility, to create artificial obstacles to prevent the setting of a new financial target.

Political turmoil to evade the main goal

The Biden Administration and the EU leadership have systematically taken the path of diverting the discussions from the target. The Biden Administration has generally taken the path of leaving as many problems as possible for the newly elected President D. Trump.

First, they used Donald Trump's name as an excuse to "not support climate finance". Then they started to distract from the core of the climate issue by creating unnecessary political complications.

The main reason for the tense process of setting the financial target is the President of the European Union and the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. She knew that, in agreement with the Biden Administration, it was decided to allocate as little money as possible to the goals of the European Union in combating climate change, and that is why she did not come to Baku.

It is no coincidence that the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who represents the EU at COP29 and has been in Baku for several days now, instead of dealing with climate issues, held a press conference and spoke about human rights in Azerbaijan, and held meetings with the Azerbaijani opposition and Western network activists here. During the last day of the COP29 discussions, they were engaged in creating only tension.

The point is that when Western representatives are asked questions about Frank Pallone and other pro-Armenian congressmen who unnecessarily came to Baku, they immediately dismiss it as purely political. But for some reason, these representatives, who took their first steps in Baku, are more interested in the issue of so-called "political prisoners" than climate action.

However, in the face of pressure from the international community, leading Western countries had to make concessions. On the other hand, developing countries also made compromises. This historic agreement was reached in Baku.

The $300 billion financial target at COP29 is truly a historic achievement and the groundwork has been laid for further increases in this amount in the coming period.

Despite all the obstacles, COP29, hosted by Azerbaijan, was a historic event in terms of both organization, participation, and the results achieved, and will be remembered for its significant contributions to the fight against climate change.