Climate change: The role of Azerbaijan as a growing exporter of fossil fuels has forced a debate at this month’s climate conference in Baku over which countries are most responsible for worsening climate change — the producers or the countries that buy and burn those fuels.

Climate activists have cited a slew of new contracts signed by Azerbaijan’s state oil company in the past year, a development that President Ilham Aliyev has defended as a “gift from God” and a realistic response to market demand.

Oil and gas account for more than 90% of the southern Caucasus country’s exports, boosted by the discovery of the Shah Deniz gas field in the early 2000s, according to the International Energy Agency. The main buyers of its petroleum are Croatia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine, among others.

After imposing sanctions on Russian gas in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union turned to other sources, including Azerbaijan. This prompted Baku to begin planning a major expansion of its oil and gas production, according to Ufuk Alparslan, regional lead for Turkey and the surrounding regions at energy research group Ember.

“Azerbaijan’s expectations are that the EU will have higher fossil fuel demand,” Alparslan told VOA. “Their target market will always be the EU, especially after the Ukraine war.”

Asked whether the buyer or the seller of fossil fuel should take the blame, Alparslan said both share the same responsibility.

“It’s not fair to blame the producers. There’s demand for it [fossil fuels]. … I think they should share the blame together,” he said.

Myrto Tilianaki, senior advocate of environment and human rights at Human Rights Watch, said all countries should double down on their transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources. Tilianaki said Azerbaijan has not set a good example as the host of this year’s U.N. climate change conference, COP29.

“As a COP president, you are meant to be galvanizing and gathering countries around higher [climate] ambitions for this COP,” Tilianaki told VOA. She said Baku’s stark support for fossil fuel expansion while calling for more ambitious climate goals is “contradictory.”

But Fadhel Kaboub, senior adviser with Kenya-based research group Power Shift Africa, told VOA it is “hypocritical” to place the blame for rising carbon emissions on producers like Azerbaijan.

“The problem is the countries of Global North that caused climate change and exceeded their carbon budget by far. And they are in a situation where they owe climate debt they need to pay to the Global South,” he said.

Azerbaijan has set a goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels in the next 25 years, provided it receives international support.

The country has several planned solar and wind projects that would generate 2 gigawatts of renewable energy. It is said to own “considerable” potential to develop renewable energy from solar, wind, hydropower, biomass and geothermal resources.

As the EU seeks to reduce its own demand for fossil fuels, Alparslan said Baku’s current strategy to boost oil and gas production might not be ideal. He said discussions on how to diversify its energy sources will be inevitable.

“The EU won’t be a good market in the future, and demand reduction will affect it. They are already at maximum capacity, and if they need to produce more, they have to develop more gas fields, which need financing,” he said.

Other developing nations in the fossil fuel-rich region will also need to develop alternatives both for domestic use and export, Alparslan added.

He cited the case of Uzbekistan, which exported more than $2 billion worth of gas in 2019 but has seen its production dry up and now is a net gas importer, according to local media reports.

While it relies on gas from Russia and other countries for now, Uzbekistan has shifted its energy investment into developing renewable sources with an eye to future exports. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said at the COP29 talks this month that he expects to sign a multilateral deal to that effect with the EU “in the coming days.”

Kaboub said developing nations with huge renewable potential like those in Africa have been denied manufacturing technology from the Global North due to perceived “geopolitical risk.”

”It’s a question of power. The Global North is not interested in disrupting the colonial geopolitical hierarchy,” he argued.

Climate finance to Africa reached $44 billion in 2021-2022, but more than one-third of that was in the form of loans to already debt-ridden nations, according to a report from the Climate Policy Initiative.

Alparslan suggested that developing countries that are highly reliant on generating and exporting fossil fuels should begin their transition by seeking to boost regional cooperation and share renewable energy through improved grid connectivity.

“These projects can attract international and external funding,” he said. “Green energy projects are more appealing than fossil fuel.” VOA/SP