Why COP29 climate finance talks start with a credibility gap
Azerbaijan has complicated that argument by insisting fossil-fuel producers should still be free to invest in oil and gas. In April, President Ilham Aliyev said Baku would defend continued sector investment and pointed to plans to raise gas exports to Europe, according to Reuters reporting on Azerbaijan’s oil and gas position. For vulnerable countries already skeptical about climate delivery, that message makes the host look less like a clean pivot toward transition and more like a government trying to hold two competing stories at once.
The contradiction sharpened in July, when another Reuters report on Azerbaijan’s proposed climate fund said officials were seeking support from fossil-fuel-producing states and companies and did not rule out financing some fossil-fuel projects. Baku’s argument is that resource-rich countries should also help fund climate action. Critics see a different problem: a summit centered on climate finance risks looking compromised when its host is still normalizing gas expansion as part of the solution.
COP29 also faces a participation test on rights
Rights advocates say the issue is not only reputational. Human Rights Watch warned in a pre-summit assessment of COP29 and participant protections that Azerbaijan’s host agreement left important questions about free expression and peaceful assembly beyond the U.N. conference zone, because participants were granted immunity for statements and actions but also required to respect Azerbaijani laws and avoid interference in the country’s “internal affairs.” In a summit that depends on pressure from civil society as well as bargaining among states, even the perception of narrowed civic space can weaken the legitimacy of any finance bargain.
That is why COP29 is being judged on more than whether negotiators can land a bigger number. The summit is also a test of whether a fossil-fuel host can persuade delegates that transition language means something in practice, and whether the people most affected by climate change can participate freely while that bargain is being made.
How the COP29 fault lines were visible months earlier
The warnings did not materialize overnight. At COP28, governments agreed for the first time to start transitioning away from fossil fuels, setting a sharper benchmark for the next host. Within days of securing the summit, Azerbaijani officials were already promoting the country’s gas potential. By January, Reuters was reporting new arrests in a widening media crackdown, and by April it documented the pretrial detention of veteran pro-democracy activist Anar Mammadli. Seen together, those earlier reports make the argument around Baku feel less like a late controversy and more like a warning that was visible for months.
COP29 can still produce a meaningful finance deal. But whatever emerges from Baku will be judged not only by the size of the number on paper. It will also be measured against whether the host country helped build trust in the transition the talks are meant to accelerate — or made that trust even harder to sustain.
