UN official: Azerbaijan had limited time to prepare for COP29, but made progress professionally

In an interview with Report, Wasim Mir, Director of the Conference Affairs at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), spoke about Azerbaijan's preparations for COP29, the steps to be taken to hold a successful climate conference in November, the side events to be held, and which countries the Trust Fund is intended for:

- First of all, we would like to know about your visit to Baku and the impressions this visit made on you. How do you assess Azerbaijan's preparation for COP29?

- I like Baku, and I also like the other parts of Azerbaijan that I visited. This is my second visit to Baku. In January, I led a fact-finding mission where we looked at different locations for hosting COP and concluded that the best location would be the Baku Stadium. Since then, we've been working very closely with the COP29 operating company to get the stadium ready for delivering COP in November. I'm here today to assess progress, and I believe that Azerbaijan is in a very good place to deliver COP29 operations in a successful way. Work has already started and considerable progress has been made in preparing the venue. We have plans in place for developing transport, catering, security, accommodation, and all aspects that need to be put in place for COP.

- Based on these observations, what else do you think is needed from a technical point of view for the success of the conference? What kind of opinion did the negotiations you conducted here, the steps to be taken, form in your mind? Also, what will be the UN's support to Azerbaijan for a successful COP29?

- COP is the biggest UN conference held every year, and we would expect 40,000 to 50,000 people to come to Baku for COP, so it is a very complex operation to deliver. Because of that, preparation needs to be multifaceted along a number of different workstreams. We have in total, 25 different work streams, ranging from accommodation, to security, to catering, to IT, to communications and good progress is being made on all of those work streams. So, over the next two months, we need to conclude that work across all these different areas to make sure that not just the venue is ready, but we are also capable of supporting the COP in all its different operations.

From my perspective, it has been a real pleasure to work very closely with the COP29 operating company in getting the operations in place for COP29. Azerbaijan was only confirmed as the host in December 2023 so they have had a limited amount of time to prepare this COP but have made progress in a very professional way.

- What steps have been taken to prepare the parties to participate in this conference?

- Parties are familiar with this conference because the COP does take place in a different location every year. However, we have been working closely with the government of Azerbaijan to make sure the parties understand the operational setup here in Baku. During the session of the subsidiary bodies in June in Bonn, the Azerbaijan team held a briefing session with all Parties where they had an opportunity to both present, but also answer questions from Parties. Subsequently, the Azerbaijan team held a briefing for the diplomatic corps. And yesterday I participated in the second briefing for the diplomatic corps with the COP29 operating company and the presidential protocol team.

- How do you assess the progress achieved since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 as the director of the conference affairs?

- The Paris Agreement was a milestone, and its aim was to galvanize every country across the world to take necessary climate action. Action has been taken since the Paris Agreement, but action has not been sufficient to stop the world heating by more than 1.5 degrees. So, we need to continue this work at COP29 and at other future COPs to raise ambition to make sure that we can combat climate change.

- As far as I know, the management of the participation fund for the UNFCCC events is also under your control. What’s the amount of the COP29 participation fund and which countries’ participation will it be used for?

- One of the key things for the COP is to make sure it's an inclusive process and so that representatives from every single country is able to attend. And as part of that, we have something called the Trust Fund for participation, which funds participation from developing countries and in particular LDC (Landlocked Developing Countries) SIDS (Small Island Developing States). So, this year for COP29, we will be funding participation from 144 countries, and particularly for LDCs, SIDs, we will be funding an additional person. So, we have three people coming from each LDCs, SIDs and two from the other eligible countries funded through the Trust Fund.

- We would also like to know about the side events to be held within the framework of COP29. Who will participate in those events?

- Within COP 29, we have a number of different components. So, we have the main core part is negotiations that form part of the UNFCCC process. But in addition to that, we have a whole range of other events. We have a range of side events held by primarily civil society, parts of the UN and others. We have events held by the COP29 Presidency as well. We also have events that are part of the Marrakesh process for climate action. On top of that, there are also pavilions within the COP29 space that are led by civil society and some by member states as well, within which we have a whole variety of events to pull together. There are many different events in addition to the core negotiations that help make COP a unique event, but also the most important event globally that we hold as part of our efforts to combat climate change.