The president of the host country for this year's annual United Nations Climate Change Conference slammed the West's hypocrisy regarding emissions and hailed oil and gas as a "gift of God, just like the sun, wind and minerals."
"Every natural resource, whether it's oil, gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all that are natural resources. Countries should not be blamed for having them, and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market," Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said during his opening remarks in Baku on Tuesday.
"As president of COP29, of course we will be a strong advocate for a green transition and we are doing it. But at the same time, we must be realistic," he added.
Aliyev slammed "Western fake news media" for criticizing emissions from countries like Azerbaijan because its global share was "only 0.1%." He also highlighted the hypocrisy of calling his country a "petrostate" when it is responsible for 0.7% and 0.9% of the global gas and oil production, respectively, while the U.S. is the top producer of both.
"Fake news media of the country which is number one oil and gas producer in the world and produces 30 times more oil than Azerbaijan call us petrostate," Aliyev said.
UN Secretary General António Guterres also addressed the conference on Tuesday, doubling down on the necessity to reduce fossil fuel consumption while declaring 2024 a "masterclass in climate destruction" since disasters were "supercharged by human-made climate change."
"The sound you hear is the ticking clock," Guterres said at the conference. "We are in the final countdown to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and time is not on our side."
The UN secretary added that the wealthiest countries should be paying the most toward COP29's new goals, which will be agreed upon by the end of the 11-day conference, since "they are the largest emitters, with the greatest capacities and responsibilities."
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