Professor of University of Alaska: Azerbaijan's future - renewable energy sources

The Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) is a unique global platform, and decisions made there must be binding on all parties to ultimately succeed, Uma Bhatt, a professor at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told Report.

"I think the COP meetings are important because that is how we make global agreements. For scientists, it is frustrating how slow the process goes but we have to have everyone at the table in these decisions in order to make them effective. And while it may not be as much progress as people feel is needed, progress was made at COP28," Bhatt noted.

According to the professor, the world has to switch away from fossil fuels in order to preserve the species and the earth:

"At present, we have the technology to be able to pivot faster than we are from fossil fuel use as our main energy source. What stands in the way of progress is businesses that are fearful that they will lose money as we switch. That was clear at the COP28 meeting.

"As we make rules for how to move away from fossil fuels it is important to make the plan equitable for the many countries that are struggling and have not contributed to this mess. We can do this by taxing fossil fuel use. This way the biggest users pay the biggest tax, which is fair. We also need to remove the many subsidies that our governments give the fossil fuel industry which helps it keep its edge. We should not be subsidizing fossil fuels. Solar and wind prices have come down tremendously and the tax money can be used for mitigation, adaptation, and renewable increase in the developing world."

Uma Bhatt thinks that fossil fuel companies are smart business people and they see the writing on the wall: "Oil is not an endless resource and it will be depleted so if they make changes to how they contribute to energy, it will be better for their long term profits because we will have a habitable planet. What good is their pile of money if the world is destroyed. It defies logic.

The professor said that Azerbaijan is an oil-producing country: "I imagine the future for renewables is good in Azerbaijan from solar and wind."