Azerbaijan leader’s fossil fuel praise an ‘abuse’ of COP29, Belgium says

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Ilham Aliyev’s fossil fuel glorification is “inappropriate” for the leader of a country hosting an international climate conference, Belgium’s energy minister told POLITICO.  
The Azerbaijani president used his opening speech at the COP29 climate summit in Baku this week to praise the country’s oil and gas resources as a “gift of the God.” 
“I really think that’s inappropriate, as a host of a conference, to say such things,” said Tinne Van der Straeten, Belgium’s energy minister, in an interview on the conference sidelines. 
“If you host the conference, if you are the presidency, then what do you need to be? An honest broker,” she added, noting that most of the countries represented at COP29 are “confronted daily by the consequences of climate change,” which is primarily driven by fossil fuel use. 
Van der Straeten warned that this kind of rhetoric was “not helpful” in reaching a complicated deal on financing climate action, the conference’s main goal.
“And it’s absolutely an abuse of the stage to do such things as the president, as the host to this COP,” she added.
She also expressed “solidarity” with French Ecological Transition Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who canceled her trip to Baku after Aliyev attacked France and the Netherlands for maintaining overseas territories.