Azerbaijan has officially submitted a bid to host the COP17 UN biodiversity summit, as the country prepares for the COP29 climate conference in Baku later this year, the government announced on Monday.
Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Muxtar Babayev, also the designated president of COP29, revealed the news during the opening ceremony of Baku Climate Action Week, taking place over Sep. 30-Oct. 4, local media reported.
“Azerbaijan has put forward its candidacy to host the 17th COP in 2026,” Babayev said in the speech.
“The final decision on this will be made in Cali at the end of next month.”
This year’s UN biodiversity summit will be held in Cali, Colombia, from Oct. 21- Nov. 1.
The announcement comes as the country prepares to host the UN climate summit in Baku from Nov. 11-22, which will be the first COP in the region.
This month, Babayev declared that Azerbaijan would put climate finance at the centre of its agenda for the summit, with a series of initiatives and outcomes aimed at gathering more public and private money, including from fossil fuel-producing countries and companies.
The COP29 presidency’s Action Agenda comprises 14 pledges, declarations, partnerships, and platforms that countries, businesses, and organisations can join. The largest is the Climate Finance Action Fund, which was launched in July.
Azerbaijan has often been criticised for its inadequate response to the climate crisis, with a report released earlier this month by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) rating the country’s effort as “critically insufficient“.
According to CAT, a scientific project led by Climate Analytics and the NewClimate Institute, Azerbaijan is one of the few countries to weaken its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), removing its 2030 goal and contradicting the Paris Agreement’s requirement that each NDC be more ambitious than the last.
The country has yet to submit its updated National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), as required by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ahead of COP16.
By Giada Ferraglioni – giada@carbon-pulse.com
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