Tensions, staging… In Baku, behind the scenes of a “difficult” and “bizarre” COP29

In the hotel lobby, a single booklet is conspicuously placed on the coffee table. He extols the merits of the “White City”, the white city of Baku, an emerging district of the capital of Azerbaijan built on the ruins of the “Black City” and its polluted lands. This “Black City” has « played a major role in the global oil industry for over a hundred years »says the brochure, reminding customers that the first oil pipeline was built here, in 1878, by the Nobel brothers.

Nearly one hundred and fifty years later, it is in this former Soviet republic which owes so much to fossil resources – described as « gift from God » by its president, Ilham Aliev – that the whole world gathered for two weeks for the annual UN climate mass. For decades, these COPs have been working to stop global warming caused by extraction and combustion…