The 29th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29) will be held in Azerbaijan this year. The choosing of this country in this capacity, however, has raised a wave of protest in environmental and professional circles.

The concerns are related to the fact that 40 percent of the GDP and more than 90 percent of the exports of Azerbaijan, which will be hosting the main climate conference of the year, is accounted for by the oil and natural gas industry. In addition, Baku has announced to increase the amount of oil and natural gas production by 33 percent in the next ten years.

However, the scandal related to the aforesaid hosting of Azerbaijan is not limited to this. A few days ago, it became known that Mukhtar Babayev, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, who, before starting his political career, had worked for 26 years at State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) and even managed to become the company's vice president, was elected as the president-in-waiting for COP29.

Although the appointment of the former vice president of SOCAR that causes the greatest damage to nature in authoritarian Azerbaijan as the minister of environmental protection does not seem so surprising to us, his election as the president-in-waiting for the COP29 is on the pages of world newspapers.

The Associated Press reminded that the president-in-waiting for the COP29 is responsible for holding negotiations among the representatives of 200 countries and carrying out the adoption of decisions to prevent global warming. It is not clear how Babayev, who has close ties with the oil and natural gas industry, will fulfill his aforesaid duties.

The Guardian notes that the minister of environmental protection of Azerbaijan, which relies on the oil and natural gas industry, is known for his statements about "destroying the nature" of Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenians.

And BBC sources said that the COP29 will be a relatively low-level event, mostly aimed at agreeing on a new, long-term funding goal. An interlocutors of this news agency had called on the participants of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to intervene and exclude the major polluting countries from the climate negotiations.

Azerbaijan, which mercilessly damages the ecosystem of its own and neighboring countries, where there are constant protests against the country's industrial activities, and an entire village was surrounded to protest against the construction of a gold mine tailings pit, along with the growing wave of protests in the country, has been targeting and continues to target the economies of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia for years with more baseless and loud accusations.