The BBC has been shown documents and secret video recordings made by the human rights organisation, Global Witness.<\/p>\n
It is understood that one of its representatives approached the COP29 team posing as the head of a fictitious Hong Kong investment firm specialising in energy.<\/p>\n
He said this company was interested in sponsoring the COP29 summit but wanted to discuss investment opportunities in Azerbaijan\u2019s state energy firm, Socar, in return. An online meeting with Soltanov was arranged.<\/p>\n
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Azerbaijan has rich oil and natural gas deposits<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Soltanov told the potential sponsor that the aim of the conference was \u201csolving the climate crisis\u201d and \u201ctransitioning away from hydrocarbons in a just, orderly and equitable manner\u201d.<\/p>\n
Anyone, he said, including oil and gas companies, \u201ccould come with solutions\u201d because Azerbaijan\u2019s \u201cdoors are open\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, he said he was open to discussions about deals too \u2013 including on oil and gas.<\/p>\n
Initially, Soltanov suggested the potential sponsor might be interested in investing in some of the \u201cgreen transitioning projects\u201d Socar was involved in \u2013 but then spoke of opportunities related to Azerbaijan\u2019s plans to increase gas production, including new pipeline infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of joint ventures that could be established,\u201d Soltanov says on the recording. \u201cSocar is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soltanov then described natural gas as a \u201ctransitional fuel\u201d, adding: \u201cWe will have a certain amount of oil and natural gas being produced, perhaps forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UN climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, acknowledges there will be a role for some oil and gas up to 2050 and beyond. However, it has been very clear that \u201cdeveloping\u2026 new oil and gas fields is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5C\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also goes against the agreement the world made at the last global climate summit to transition away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
Soltanov appeared eager to help get discussions going, telling the potential sponsor: \u201cI would be happy to create a contact between your team and their team [Socar] so that they can start discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks later the fake Hong Kong investment company received an email \u2013 Socar wanted to follow up on the lead.<\/p>\n
Attempting to do business deals as part of the COP process appears to be a serious breach of the standards of conduct expected of a COP official.<\/p>\n
These events are supposed to be about reducing the world\u2019s use of fossil fuels \u2013 the main driver of climate change \u2013 not selling more.<\/p>\n
The standards are set by the UN body responsible for the climate negotiations, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).<\/p>\n
The UN said it could not comment directly on our findings but remarked that \u201cthe same rigorous standards\u201d are applied to whoever hosts the conference, and that those standards reflect \u201cthe importance of impartiality on the part of all presiding officers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Its code of conduct for COP officials states they are \u201cexpected to act without bias, prejudice, favouritism, caprice, self-interest, preference or deference, strictly based on sound, independent and fair judgement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are also expected to ensure that personal views and convictions do not compromise or appear to compromise their role and functions as a UNFCCC officer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christiana Figueres, who oversaw the signing of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C, told the BBC that she was shocked anyone in the COP process would use their position to strike oil and gas deals.<\/p>\n
She said such behaviour was \u201ccontrary and egregious\u201d to the the purpose of COP and \u201ca treason\u201d to the process.<\/p>\n
The BBC has also seen emails between the COP29 team and the fake investors.<\/p>\n
In one chain, the team discusses a $600,000 (\u00a3462,000) sponsorship deal with a fake company in return for the Socar introduction and involvement in an event about \u201csustainable oil and gas investing\u201d during COP29.<\/p>\n
Officials offered five passes with full access to the summit and drafted a contract which initially required the firm to make some commitments to sustainability. Then it pushed back, one requirement was dropped and \u201ccorrections\u201d were considered to another.<\/p>\n
The BBC asked Azerbaijan\u2019s COP29 team and Socar for comment. Neither responded to the requests.<\/p>\n
The findings come a year after the BBC obtained leaked documents that revealed plans by the UAE to use its role as host of COP28 to strike oil and gas deals.<\/p>\n
COP28 was the first time agreement was reached on the need to transition away from fossil fuels.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nov 9 \u2013 A senior official at COP29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals, the BBC can report. A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan\u2019s COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing \u201cinvestment opportunities\u201d in the state oil and gas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}