The Asian Development Bank has allocated some technical assistance funding to provide capacity building to the government agencies involved in preparations for the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) in Baku, the General Director of the bank’s Regional Department for Central and West Asia, Eugene Zhukov said in an interview with Report.
"As soon as Azerbaijan’s presidency was announced, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa sent a letter to President of Azerbaijan, Mister Ilham Aliyev to offer ADB support. And I visited the country three weeks ago together with climate change team to discuss the specific areas for the support to Azerbaijan's COP presidency. And we’ve already allocated some technical assistance funding to provide capacity building to the government agencies involved in this to enable them to conduct the meeting itself and also help them to prepare for the forthcoming negotiations," he said.
He noted that ADB wants to help Azerbaijan to increase the share of renewable energy in its production, so that Azerbaijan could demonstrate to the rest of the world its commitment to decarbonize and deal with the impacts of climate change.
"I mentioned one project, which we did a couple of years ago with Masdar, and we're looking for further investments in this renewable energy area this year," he said.