The Netherlands and France criticize Aliyev: Baku does not deserve COP presidency

France’s top climate official is skipping the COP29 climate negotiations in Azerbaijan after the host country’s president accused France of “brutally” suppressing climate change concerns in its overseas territories, French Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher told the French Senate on Wednesday, denouncing Aliyev’s remarks as “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable.”

The decision means that for the first time since the 2015 Paris Agreement—which France helped engineer and has since strongly defended—a COP will take place without senior French leadership.

The dispute also deepens a growing rift between France and Azerbaijan over Paris’ military support for Baku’s historic rival, Armenia.

Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani autocrat, used a gathering of island leaders to lambast France and the Netherlands for their “neocolonialism,” which he linked to climate change.

Aliyev claimed that France had caused “environmental degradation” in the territories, which he described as “colonies,” citing the nuclear tests in French Polynesia and Algeria. He also accused French President Emmanuel Macron’s government of being responsible for the violent outbursts in New Caledonia earlier this year.

In a statement shared with POLITICO, a spokesperson for the Dutch foreign ministry “categorically” rejected the Azerbaijani ruler’s “unfounded views about repression” in Dutch overseas territories.

Pannier-Runacher, the French climate minister, also described the COP29 host country’s support of fossil fuels as “unacceptable.”