Climate activist Greta Thunberg says she will not be attending COP29 because the event is “greenwashing”.
Host nation Azerbaijan “has no ambition to take climate action”, she says.
Writing in today’s Guardian newspaper, Thunberg argues that Azerbaijan is “planning to expand fossil fuel production” – with state petrochemicals company Socar’s oil and gas accounting for nearly 90% of the country’s exports.
This is “completely incompatible with the 1.5C limit and the goals of the Paris agreement on climate change,” she says.
Thunberg also argues that the COP meetings have “allowed authoritarian regimes like Azerbaijan and the two previous hosts – the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – to continue violating human rights”.
Describing Azerbaijan as a “repressive state”, she mentions the “human rights violations committed by Azerbaijan’s Aliyev regime” against ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region.
Many attendees of this year’s COP are “scared to criticise the Azerbaijan government,” Thunberg adds.
