Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom Elin Suleymanov was interviewed by Times Radio, British digital radio station.

AZERTAC presents his interview: “The Global community will gather in Baku in Azerbaijan for the most important summit on climate action. COP29 is very important. Why? Because of finance COP. We need to talk on the new collective, quantifiable goal. This is basically the financial targets to supplement the ambition. Think about this. When there was a decision in Paris agreement to move forward with a climate agenda, there was real backing resource-wise for the agenda. So, for now, we all talk a lot, but we don't deliver on providing resources. Baku is crucial to add the real resource base to all the things people say about climate. So, if, for instance, it doesn't happen, then what we will do next? It will be just a conversation or what happened in Dubai - which was a great achievement, by the way, from our colleagues in UAE and all the global community - will just remain unsupported ambition by resources.”

Touching upon the venue for the conference and the hype emerged concerning this topic, the diplomat underscored: “COP29 is not a controversial hosting place. Any place in the world can be called 'contradictory' by this logic. What place cannot be called 'problematic'? They criticize everyone."

The ambassador also emphasized: “But let's think about this. We are getting together to address the most important challenge of humanity. This is a climatic action. Of course, some would see it as a great opportunity to bash Azerbaijan. This is their job. But this is not about Azerbaijan, this is not about Azerbaijan being attacked. This is about - do we agree to move forward with the global climate action or not?”

The host tried to raise the issue of 'greenwashing,' which has been mentioned in commissioned articles by some detractors. 'This is an example of greenwashing—the use of climate issues to sanitize a country’s reputation,' he began, but the Azerbaijani diplomat immediately rejected this narrative and said: “Of course, not. Less than a year ago, we had no idea that we would be hosting COP. How could we deal with "greenwashing"? We have begun working on green transition long before Azerbaijan agreed to host COP.” Elin Suleymanov also added that he did not fully understand the intention of those who expressed their opinion for the sake of criticism.

Vugar Seyidov

Special correspondent

Budapest