The COP29 conference to be held in Azerbaijan in November 2024 will not just be a regular event to discuss environmental issues, but a large global forum where important steps will be taken together to address pressing environmental issues. As it is known, Azerbaijan has a great potential for cooperation with different countries in this issue and search for new sustainable solutions.

Today, Azerbaijan's active role in promoting global initiatives aimed at mitigating climate change and advancing advanced “green technologies” is emphasized.

COP29, the world's largest international conference, is considered a high-level event due to the participation of representatives of more than 100 countries. 

Since a wide range of issues will be discussed at this conference, Azerbaijan, as the host country, has the opportunity to demonstrate its role in the international community and prove that it can make a valuable contribution to solving global problems.

Naeem Ahmed, Ph.D., Chairman and Associate Professor of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi (Pakistan), told STEM Center about the political aspects of the event, as well as its regional significance.

 

 

The interest of Asian countries like Azerbaijan in hosting COP29 is a progress towards right direction in combating climate change and facing environmental challenges as Central Asian countries have been themselves the victims of it. The slow death of Aral Sea and the people of Kazakhstan suffering from radiation exposure due to Soviet-era policies. Hosting this even allows Azerbaijan to welcome other states especially countries like Iran and Armenia with whom it does not enjoy cordial relations with, to unite and work to face the climate change and for the betterment of humanity and for the future generations.   

 

 

The 2022 Floods in Pakistan killed 1,739 people, and caused ₨ 3.2 trillion of damage and ₨ 3.3 trillion of economic losses. Most of the environmental disasters being faced by Pakistan are manmade/artificial/ anthropogenic. Housing projects like Baharia Town and DHA Karachi, projects like Mali expressway have caused massive displacement of the indigenous population, reduction of greenspaces in the Pakistani province of Sindh, and frequent urban flooding in Karachi, the metropolitan city of Sindh. Illegal mining at Karoonjhar Mountains despite courts orders prohibiting such illegal activities by private and multinational companies. Pakistan has seen non-violent protests in Sindh against the left bank outfall drain; failure to rehabilitate flood victims; illegal constructions on rivers; depleting fishery resources; indigenous population’s displacement by land acquisition; wildlife extinction including blind dolphins; mangrove destruction; and the twin islands takeover. Balochistan saw protests against illegal fishing trawlers, and Gilgit-Baltistan against illegal land grabbing. In 2023, the interim government of Sindh gave up 52,700 acres land, and the caretaker government of Punjab handed over at least 45,267 acres land for corporate farming. On April 11, 2023 Human Rights Watch demanded Pakistan to stop the forcible eviction of thousands of farmers for constructing the Ravi Riverfront Urban Development Project and to enforce environmental protections and reform colonial-era land acquisition laws. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was nominated as vice president of 2022 UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) which was going to force the issue of compensation for poor countries for environmental impact, but ironically he before attending the conference, inaugurated the commercial operations of Phase-II of coal-mining, contradicting the 2021 COP26, which had called for a transition to clean energy and the rapid ‘phase-out’ of coal, which was later reluctantly replaced with ‘phase-down.’

 

 

States attending the conference must realize and recognize the environmental rights as human rights and make achieving the 1.5C agreed target; and, secondly, preserving their cultivatable lands in the light of the warnings issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) about only 60 years of harvest is left in the world due to top soil destruction and depletion, binding and liable to sanctions if any country deviates from them.

 

 

The role of international community is very important with respect to the development and implementation of the environmental international law, and most recently the Republic of Vanuatu called on the UN General Assembly to refer a request to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for an ‘advisory opinion’ asking the ICJ to clarify what the legal obligations of countries all over the world are under international law when it comes to climate action. Climate conferences can provide an opportunity to all the states to support countries like Vanuatu and also call upon the UN Security Council to enforce the environment related legal verdicts of ICJ and UN General Assembly’s resolution. There has to be sanctions upon countries from withdrawing from and sabotaging important international legal instruments like Kyoto Protocol and Paris climate agreement, and make the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals compulsory and mandatory.   

 

 

Pakistan has always supported Azerbaijan, diplomatically and militarily, in international relations and this conference has provided an opportunity to Azerbaijan to play a leadership role in bringing all the countries especially Asian countries on the issue of climate change and sustainable development, and a country like Pakistan which has always supported Azerbaijan, can play a pivotal role in this regard, especially with the growing unrest in the region.