A damning investigation has revealed that Azerbaijan’s COP29 leadership attempted to use the UN climate summit to broker fossil fuel deals, drawing fierce criticism from former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who condemned the actions as “a treason” to the climate process. Secret recordings and documents obtained through an undercover operation by Global Witness, and reviewed by the BBC, show Azerbaijan’s COP29 chief executive Elnur Soltanov discussing oil and gas investment opportunities with individuals he believed represented a Hong Kong investment firm.
“We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed,” Soltanov told the undercover investigators during a video meeting in September 2024. As both CEO of COP29 and Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, Soltanov’s dual role has raised serious concerns about conflicts of interest at the heart of this year’s climate negotiations. The investigation began when Global Witness approached the COP29 team posing as EC Capital, a fictitious energy investment firm. Their representatives expressed interest in sponsoring the climate conference while seeking investment opportunities in Azerbaijan’s state energy company, SOCAR.
What followed appears to be a serious breach of UN standards. The COP29 team offered a GBP462,000 (around $600,000) sponsorship package that included five passes with full access to the summit, introductions to SOCAR executives, and participation in an event about “sustainable oil and gas investing” during the conference. During meetings, Soltanov attempted to balance climate rhetoric with fossil fuel promotion. While speaking about “solving the climate crisis” and “transitioning away from hydrocarbons in a just, orderly and equitable manner”, he simultaneously promoted natural gas as a “transitional fuel” and suggested that “we will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever”.
This stance directly contradicts the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change guidance, which explicitly states that developing new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. It also appears to undermine last year’s historic agreement at COP28, where nations agreed for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels.
