Climate change: Former oil executive Mukhtar Babayev to lead COP29 talks in Azerbaijan

For the second year in a row, a minister with vast experience of the oil industry will be in charge of global climate negotiations.

Azerbaijan’s Mukhtar Babayev has been named as the president-designate of the COP29 talks in Baku next November.

Mr Babayev spent decades working at the national oil company before becoming environment minister in 2018.

He takes over from Sultan al-Jaber who presided over COP28 in Dubai last year.

Little is known about Mr Babayev, who is currently serving as minister for ecology and natural resources in the Azerbaijan government.

He spent spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar, in a variety of roles.

His predecessor in the role, Sultan al-Jaber from the United Arab Emirates was also an experienced oil executive who decided to stay on as head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company while also running COP28.

But despite questions over his position and the influence of oil producers on the talks, Mr Jaber succeeded in gaining agreement on “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” from all countries at the meeting.

Mr Babayev has a much lower profile among climate diplomats – he is not a well-known figure and little is known about what the priorities of the Azerbaijan government will be for their presidency.

However, experienced negotiators say that COP29 will be a lower-profile event, with more focus on agreeing a new, longer-term quantified goal on finance.

“COP29 won’t be as fraught, but it needs to deliver on finance, otherwise, we’re not going to see the step change in ambition,” said former lead negotiator Kaveh Guilanpour, who is now with the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions.

“Diplomatically, finance will be difficult but I think the job of the presidency overall will be easier in the sense that it’s just less complicated,” he told BBC News.

Nevertheless, some climate campaigners are angry at the choice and concerned about the growing role of the oil industry in the talks.

“There’s a sense of déjà vu setting in – we now have a former oil executive from an authoritarian petrostate in charge of the world’s response to the crisis that fossil fuel firms created,” said Alice Harrison from Global Witness.

“We again call for the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] to urgently intervene and kick big polluters out of climate talks, to ensure the talks are held in good faith, and to remove those people who want to make a profit at the expense of the world’s most vulnerable people.”

Azerbaijan has been ruled by President Ilham Aliyev since 2003. He secured his latest term in 2018 in an election which Western observers said fell short of democratic standards.

Under his rule, Azerbaijan has increased its international profile, including hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, the Baku European Games in 2015 and is now set for COP29 this year.