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IUSY and YES Issue Joint Statement Demanding Transformative Action for COP29
The International Union of Socialist Youth and the Young European Socialists have released a joint statement addressing their position on the United Nations Climate summit, known as COP29, being hosted in Azerbaijan.
The preamble of the statement reads:
“The cost of inaction in the face of severe and irreversible climate impacts far outweighs the costs of mitigation and adaptation. COP29 must provide an opportunity for us to change course and for the international community, in particular the countries of the Global North, to commit to making the significant, but necessary investments.
As socialist activists, we strongly advocate for reform and a reassessment of the selection process for COP hosting. Allowing a petrostate, one recently responsible for brutal ethnic cleansing financed by oil and gas profits, and significantly expanding fossil fuel production—to host this crucial climate summit is deeply inappropriate. This decision undermines the credibility and integrity of the entire process. Fossil fuels make up 90 percent of Azerbaijan’s total exports. These interests will plague COP29, a large number of high-level oil and gas executives sit on the organizing committee.”
The statement emphasizes the urgent need to increase climate financing while expressing deep concern over the excessive reliance on carbon markets as the primary solution to the climate crisis. It highlights that the climate crisis is a direct consequence of capitalism, allowing high-exporting countries to sidestep imposing meaningful costs on carbon emissions.
The statement proceeds to outline Azerbaijan’s human rights violations and articulate a series of demands:
“Finally, we draw attention to the need to uphold justice and human rights. The IUSY and YES express concern about the decision to host COP in Azerbaijan; a country in which fossil fuels, militarisation, and authoritarianism are deeply intertwined. The host agreement between Azerbaijan and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is replete with gaps on rights protections for COP participation. This damages the credibility of COP and highlights the need to reform the UNFCCC to ensure credibility of the rotating presidency, uninhibited access of key stakeholders in civil society, and introduce a binding veto process.
In December of 2022, Aliyev’s government launched a humanitarian and energy blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), which resulted in the forced displacement of 120,000 ethnic Armenians from their ancestral land. This created an environmental crisis in the water table, prompted by the dissipation of the region’s key reservoir and hydropower plant. It is evident that Azerbaijan will weaponize, and destroy, the local environment to commit atrocities.
Azerbaijan has increased their prosecution of critical voices in the lead-up to COP, arresting outspoken activists, politicians, and academics. Amidst the forced displacement of the indigenous Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev’s forces abducted and illegally imprisoned 8 current and former members of Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership. The IUSY and YES demand the Azerbaijani Government to release all political prisoners (journalists, activists, and political opponents), as well as all ethnic Armenian POWs, civilian abductees, and hostages immediately and be held accountable for their historic record of war crimes and crimes against humanity, notably carrying out a complete ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. We stand true to our policy in support of the people’s self-determination and the Armenian population’s right to collective return to their homeland Nagorno-Karabakh. Additionally, we call on Azerbaijan to end hostilities against the Republic of Armenia and commit to durable and sustainable peace in the region.”
The statement concludes by addressing European Union countries: “Azerbaijan has recently committed to doubling fossil exports to Europe by 2027. We demand that the EU and its member states divest from Azerbaijani fossil fuels, honoring the interlinked prerogatives of climate protection, human rights, and peacekeeping.”
ARF Youth is a full member of the IUSY and YES.