The Guardian: A ‘COP of peace’? It is gut-wrenching to talk of global peace after the terrible human rights violations in Artsakh region
During rapidly escalating climate and humanitarian crises, another authoritarian petrostate with no respect for human rights is hosting Cop29, Ecoactivist Greta Thunberg wrote for The Guardian.
She noted that Azerbaijan’s entire economy is built on fossil fuels, with the state-owned oil company Socar’s oil and gas exports accounting for close to 90% of the country’s exports.
Many attendees of this year’s Cop are scared to criticize the Azerbaijan government. Human Rights Watch recently published a statement explaining how it couldn’t be certain that attenders’ rights to peacefully protest would be guaranteed. In addition, Azerbaijan land and sea borders will remain closed during Cop29, making it only possible to travel in and out of the country by air, which causes pollution and which many Azerbaijan citizens can’t afford. The reason given for closing borders at all Cops since the start of the Covid pandemic is to maintain “national security”, but I’ve heard many Azerbaijanis describe the situation as being “kept in a prison”.
The Azerbaijan regime is guilty of ethnic cleansing, humanitarian blockades and war crimes, as well as repressing its own population and cracking down on the country’s civil society. The independent watchdog Freedom House ranks the country as the least democratic state in Europe, with the regime actively targeting journalists, independent media outlets, political and civic activists, and human rights defenders. Azerbaijan also accounts for about 40% of Israel’s annual oil imports, thus fuelling the Israeli war machine and being complicit in the genocide in Palestine and Israel’s war crimes in Lebanon. The Azerbaijan-Israel ties are mutually beneficial as the majority of weapons used by Azerbaijan during the second Nagorno-Karabakh war and likely those used in the September 2023 military operation into the Karabakh region were imported from Israel. The “Cop of peace” is one theme chosen for this year’s climate conference by the host.
“It is gut-wrenching, to say the least, to talk of global peace after the terrible human rights violations committed by Azerbaijan’s Aliyev regime against ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is planning to greenwash its crimes against Armenians by building a “Green Energy Zone” on territories where the population has been ethnically cleansed,” the author noted, adding that the conference is being held in Azerbaijan as Armenia lifted its veto against Azerbaijan and supported its bid in exchange for a release of prisoners, although a large number of Armenian political prisoners are still being held.
“The climate crisis is just as much about protecting human rights as it is about protecting the climate and biodiversity. You cannot claim to care about climate justice if you ignore the sufferings of oppressed and colonized people today,” Thunberg wrote.
