COP29 President-Designate: ‘We consider Baku as a bridge between the developing and developed world’

The Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Baku, Azerbaijan, must build on last year’s successful agreement to transition away from fossil fuels, Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan’s environment minister, who will serve as conference president this fall, said in a 30-minute interview with The Associated Press at the Azerbaijan embassy in Washington, Report informs.

According to him, this fall’s meeting must help pave the way for countries to come together in 2025 on beefed-up plans to clamp down on heat-trapping gases: “Baku is the place to find common ground on how rich countries may provide financial help to poorer nations who generally don’t contribute as much to warming but suffer more from climate change. We consider Baku as a bridge between the developing and developed world.”

“But there is one general goal: More financial help for the developing world to shift to cleaner energy systems, and to cope with the extra heat, floods, storms, and droughts worsened by climate change. The agenda is to invite all the donors to at least increase their contribution for developing countries. Because with the climate change there we are daily faced with all these impacts,” Babayev said.

The COP29 President-Designate called on the private sector to be very active and responsible about this and to be ready to not delay with the offers, the proposals for climate finance.