By Gloria Dickie
LONDON (Reuters) – An official with Azerbaijan’s Presidency of next week’s United Nations COP29 climate summit appeared to offer to facilitate talks about new fossil fuel deals ahead of the conference, according to a video secretly recorded by an advocacy group.
In an investigation first reported by the BBC, non-profit group Global Witness, which advocates against corruption, said it had set up a fake company to express interest in investing in Azerbaijan’s national oil and gas company SOCAR, and in sponsoring the annual climate summit.
In the video, recorded by Global Witness, Elnur Soltanov, CEO of the COP29 talks in Baku aimed at tackling global warming, offers to introduce a representative of the sham oil and gas firm, called EC Capital, to SOCAR.
“We have a lot of pipeline infrastructure. We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed. We have a lot of green projects that SOCAR is very interested in,” Soltanov, who is Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, said in the video. Reuters was unable to independently verify the video.
“There are a lot of joint ventures that could be established, potential joint ventures.
“SOCAR Trading is trading oil and gas all over the world, including in Asia. To me, these are the possibilities to explore. But in any case this is something that you need to be talking to SOCAR, and I would be happy to create a contact between yourself and them,” Soltanov says.
SOCAR then reached out to the fake oil and gas investment group and expressed interest in a meeting, Global Witness said.
Soltanov did not respond to requests for comment.
SOCAR representatives could not immediately be contacted for comment late on Friday.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency — the summit’s host, which is led by Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev — declined to comment to Reuters.
Oil and gas make up roughly half of Azerbaijan’s economy, and 90% of its exports.
Last year, leaked documents obtained by the Centre for Climate Reporting showed that COP28 host United Arab Emirates planned to discuss possible natural gas and other commercial deals ahead of the U.N. climate talks. At the time, COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, the top representative for the UAE, denied the allegations.
“If this is the second year in a row where petro-states have been able to take on the presidency and have been able to use (their) position as president to further fossil fuel interests, then I think that does raise huge questions for the U.N. and the kind of rules and guidelines in place for how countries go about in carrying out this presidency,” said Simon Roach, a senior investigator with Global Witness.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
COP29, which begins on Monday, is supposed to help countries build off an agreement made in Dubai last year to transition away from fossil fuels.
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London; Additional reporting by Kate Abnett in Brussels; Editing by Catherine Evans)
