COP29, the UN’s annual climate conference, wrapped up in Baku in November with a flurry of disappointing outcomes. As representatives from civil society and climate-vulnerable nations decry insufficient climate finance commitments and a lack of concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels, more than 300 Azerbaijani political prisoners are still waiting for news of their fate.
The number of political prisoners in detention has surged by 243% since Feb. 2023, just two months after the country was selected to host COP29. Over the past year, members of Azerbaijan’s small civil society have either fled the country for safety or been arrested under repressive laws that disguise the true reason for their persecution — their critique of the country’s human rights and environmental record.
“The level of repression [in Azerbaijan] clearly intensified in the run-up to COP, reaching unprecedented levels not seen since the Soviet Union,” Florian Irminger, President of the Progress & Change Action Lab, told Global Citizen.
A Dangerous Trend of Suppressing Human Rights
The consequences of Azerbaijan’s oil-soaked agenda at COP29 are still being realized. Over the next year, the host country will be responsible for helping implement agreements reached during the conference and advocating for continued climate action. As this work is carried out, it’s worth considering what meaningful progress Azerbaijan can make after spending the past year helping fossil fuel lobbyists attend the conference and initiating discussions of new oil and gas investments.
Unfortunately, the host country’s dangerous tradition of keeping civil society and environmental human rights defenders out of climate negotiations persists.
“It makes me really worried for the future because they are demonstrating how to be restrictive. They are setting a new precedent for similar regimes to follow,” Irminger said.
Hosting climate conferences in countries where civic space is repressed has made it easier for world leaders to ignore defenders’ perspectives during climate negotiations. In Qatar, human rights defenders are regularly harassed and arbitrarily arrested, yet the country hosted COP18 in 2012. Ahead of COP24 in 2018, Poland’s presidency was marred by legislation that bans spontaneous protest and allows the government to surveil non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Most recently, petrostates Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) used their authoritarianism to advance oil interests while hosting the conference.
While Egypt’s COP27 led to a historic climate finance agreement, the world also witnessed dangerous backsliding for the climate conference’s transparency and participation of civil society. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Egyptian officials consistently intimidated, tracked, and barred entry to environmental human rights defenders before and during the conference. One of the world’s largest oil producers, the UAE focused on silencing critics during COP28, as well as keeping detainees who had previously finished their sentences in prison.
“What is slightly different for Azerbaijan is that the human rights and environmental justice community is extremely small. If you arrest five or six civil society leaders, two or three researchers, and a dozen journalists, you’ve done what you need to do to silence criticism,” Irminger told Global Citizen.
Silencing Voices for Climate Justice
Irminger’s Progress & Change Action Lab is a nonprofit advisory group that works closely with members of Azerbaijan’s civil society. In the year leading up to COP, it supported a group of NGOs that founded the Climate of Justice Initiative to draw attention to Azerbaijan’s regressive record on human rights and environmental efforts.
In response to Anar Mammadli’s April 2024 arrest on smuggling charges, the Progress & Change Action Lab launched the Anar Mammadli Campaign to spotlight Azerbaijan’s suppression of civic space in the climate justice movement, even as it leads COP discussions.
“[The Climate of Justice Initiative] was the only initiative working on climate and environment issues in Azerbaijan, looking at it from the angle of human rights,” Irminger said. “In many ways, Mammadli’s arrest is emblematic of the long-term repression of defenders in Azerbaijan.”
A prominent democracy and human rights defender in Azerbaijan, Mammadli has supported fair and free elections in his home country for decades, co-founding the country’s only independent election watchdog in 2008. He’s faced years of government repression, during which time he has been arrested, and later pardoned, for publishing a critical report on the 2013 presidential elections.
Mammadli’s most recent arrest is widely considered retaliation for his founding of the Climate of Justice Initiative, and the government has recently extended his pre-trial detention until early 2025. His story has illuminated the government’s consistent targeting of environmental human rights defenders over the past year.
“This new wave of repression in Azerbaijan started in June 2023 after protests against the environmental impacts of a gold mining company,” Zohrab Ismayil, a human rights defender and co-founder of the Climate of Justice Initiative in Azerbaijan, told Global Citizen.
These protests took place in Söyüdlü, a village in western Azerbaijan. Dozens of people were arrested, injured, or later detained by the police because of their participation, including Nazim Baydamirli, a self-described “prisoner of ecology” and former member of the Azerbaijani parliament.
“After the police suppressed these protests, the government started to punish the public figures who criticized violence against residents and online media outlets that covered protests,” Ismayil said. “I think the government also wanted to silence independent media and CSOs before this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, which were held without alternatives.”
Journalists associated with Abzas Media (an independent media organization in Azerbaijan) or anyone who drew attention to the protests were targeted.
“This really showcases two important trends — a desire to completely control civil society and a willingness to shut down any public debate on environmental or climate issues ahead of COP,” Irminger added.
Looking Ahead to Future COPs
Time and again, authoritarian countries have abused their hosting powers to keep environmental human rights defenders from participating in climate negotiations — the only way to stop these abusive practices is to prevent these actors from having ample opportunities to restrict civic space.
“By adopting reactionary laws and exerting political control over the judiciary, [Azerbaijan] restricts freedom of association and expression, effectively paralyzing mechanisms for human rights protection,” Ismayil pointed out.
That’s where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) can step in.
“UNFCCC is bound by the UN charter and international law,” Irminger said. “They have a duty to ensure international human rights standards are respected and upheld [during the annual climate conference].”
Amid reports of Azerbaijan’s controversial hosting practices at this year’s conference, a group of influential climate policy experts penned an open letter to the UNFCCC calling for “a fundamental overhaul of the COP,” intended to restrict countries that support the continued use of fossil fuels from becoming hosts.
“We have to ask ourselves what the goal of these conferences truly is, and that’s to foster a community of action for the climate,” Irminger told Global Citizen. “COP is for the people and their interests to be represented, not for governments to promote their own self-interests.”
In preparation for next year (2025), Brazil’s COP30 is expected to include more environmental human rights defenders in climate negotiations. In particular, the formation of the Indigenous Peoples' Troika is one initiative that seeks to give Indigenous peoples a greater presence at future COPs, especially if Australia is selected as the host of COP31 in 2026 (which will not be decided until at least June 2025).
If these voices are not prioritized and valued for the knowledge they bring to the table, the dangerous trend of ignoring and restricting civil society will continue, tanking global climate goals.
Join our movement calling for a just energy transition that upholds human rights. With opportunities to contact representatives, sign petitions, and learn about civic space, there are plenty of opportunities for you to raise your voice and take action with Global Citizen.