COP29: Climate Action Crucial to Protect Rights

Governments participating in the 29th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) should urgently commit to drastically reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, including by immediately and fairly phasing out of fossil fuels, Human Rights Watch said today. The climate conference will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22, 2024.

“Governments preparing their national climate plans should ensure that they are consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius” said Richard Pearshouse, environment and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Increased production of coal, oil, and gas compounds the harm to human health, drives human rights abuses against fence-line communities at sites of fossil fuel production, and accelerates our global climate breakdown.”

At COP28 in 2023, the key outcome document called on countries to start “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” While this was the first time in more than 30 years of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that countries made a key decision to explicitly mention “fossil fuels,” the commitment fell short of what is needed to contain the global temperature rise to the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold and avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Since COP28, there has been very little national-level progress on this commitment.

Fossil fuels are the primary driver of the climate crisis, accounting for over 80 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, and can be linked to severe human rights harm at all stages of production. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change has stated that current fossil fuel projects are already more than the climate can handle.

In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that there cannot be any new fossil fuel projects if countries are to meet existing climate targets and avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Despite scientific consensus, governments continue to authorize building new fossil fuel infrastructure and to poorly regulate existing operations.

A recent UN report stressed that countries should “deliver dramatically stronger ambition and action” in their national climate plans, and failure to do so would risk temperature increases of 2.6-3.1 degrees Celsius over the course of this century with devastating consequences for people and the planet.

Based on reports, Azerbaijan, the COP29 host, is planning to increase its oil and gas production in the next decade. Oil and gas revenues accounted for 60 percent of Azerbaijan’s state budget in 2021 and about 90 percent of its export revenue. During a high-level meeting in April 2024 to prepare for COP29, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said that the country’s oil and gas reserves were “a gift from God,” suggesting that Azerbaijan is entitled to expand its oil and gas production when all countries are being called upon to phase out production and use of fossil fuels.

“Governments attending COP29 shouldn’t allow Azerbaijan to use its position as COP29 host to continue to push the expansion of fossil fuels and undermine efforts to confront the climate crisis and protect human rights,” Pearshouse said.

Rights-respecting climate action requires the full and meaningful participation of activists, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society and youth groups, and Indigenous peoples’ representatives to ensure scrutiny of governmental action and to press for ambitious COP29 outcomes. This includes those on the front lines of the climate crisis and the populations most at risk from the impacts of climate change. Freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of association, and peaceful assembly need to be protected, as these rights are crucial for designing inclusive and ambitious policies to tackle the climate crisis.

But, Azerbaijan has an authoritarian government with the track record of intolerance towards dissent. In recent months the authorities escalated the crackdown against the remaining vestiges of independent civil society and media by arresting dozens of people on politically motivated, bogus criminal charges and through the arbitrary enforcement of highly restrictive laws regulating nongovernmental organizations. Those arbitrarily detained include an anti-corruption activist critical of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector and a human rights defender who co-founded an initiative that advocated civic freedoms and environmental justice in Azerbaijan ahead of COP29.

The Azerbaijani government’s hostility toward independent activism raises concerns about whether civil society groups will be able to participate meaningfully at COP29 and the extent to which environmental activism will take place in Azerbaijan following the conference, Human Rights Watch said.

To meet their human rights commitments, the hosts of climate conferences, including Azerbaijan, as well as the UNFCCC secretariat, should respect the human rights of all participants, including their rights to free speech and to peacefully assemble inside and outside the official conference venue.

In August 2024, the secretariat signed a host agreement with Azerbaijan for COP29, but it has not made it public. Human Rights Watch obtained a copy revealing significant gaps regarding protections for participants’ rights. While the agreement grants legal immunity for participants’ statements and actions, it requires them to respect Azerbaijani laws and not interfere in its “internal affairs.”

Yet, it is unclear what “interference” entails and if Azerbaijani laws apply within the UN conference zone. Given Azerbaijan’s restrictions on free expression and assembly, participants could be subject to reprisals outside the zone, Human Rights Watch said.

The secretariat and governments attending COP29 should publicly call upon the Azerbaijani government to respect its human rights obligations and facilitate a rights-respecting climate conference.