COP29 in Azerbaijan | A postcard in the middle of the desert

It’s hard not to be impressed by the “Sphere”, this luminous ball-shaped theater that seems to have landed like a meteor in the Nevada desert. And even more difficult not to be moved while watching the film. Postcard from Earthone of his offerings to the Las Vegas public.

For 50 minutes, our heart beats to the rhythm of the Earth. From the first hints of life to the greatest splendors that cover it. From the first steps of human beings on the planet to their craziest and most ambitious achievements.

We tremble when a herd of elephants passes. You can feel the wind in your face. We see with wonder millions of butterflies circling above his head. We can almost touch the planet that appears to us in 3D without having to wear glasses.

This immersive film by Darren Aronofsky – to whom we owe in particular Black Swan – is not just an overview of the world. It is also a fable about the excess of the human being who, just before having exterminated what he loves most – his own world – decides to leave it to let him regain his health. To let life and nature take back their rights.

Why am I telling you about this? Because it keeps coming to mind since the start of the United Nations conference on climate change, COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan.

And it is not the connection between the subject of the feature film and that of the UN conference that appeals to me, but rather the irony in which the cinematographic work is bathed as much as the world summit with a green content.

Because if there is one thing that shakes you when you see Postcard from Earth once the flakes of beauty that he threw in our faces have settled, there is a gap between the subject of the film and the environment in which it is presented. The Sphere is an energy-guzzling behemoth. “An ecological aberration”, writes the French magazine Telerama.

According to a study by a British institute specializing in best practices in construction, RICS, the Sphere, which is covered in a million LED lights, alone consumes the electricity needed to power 21,000 Nevada homes annually.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who was offered a second comparable project, recently passed his turn. Because he fears the light pollution caused by this glittering globe as much as his ecological footprint.

To present Postcard from Earth at the Sphere is therefore equivalent to presenting a tribute to virgin forests in the auditorium of a huge sawmill… or to holding an international conference to combat global warming in an authoritarian country fueled by an industry at the origin of the problem.

Reality trips up good intentions.

And in Azerbaijani reality, the oil and gas industry takes all the space. In the country where the very first hydrocarbon well was discovered, the exploitation of fossil fuels accounts for a third of the government budget and represents 90% of exports.

The regime in place and the country’s national oil company, SOCAR, are one and the same. President Ilham Aliev, who was vice-president of SOCAR before succeeding his father as head of the Caucasian republic, now has the power to appoint its board of directors. And the current manager of this same company is at the heart of the organization of COP29.

All this, experts say, colors the discussions taking place in Baku, just as was the case in Dubai last year or in Egypt two years ago. We ask the lion to supervise the gazelles and we forget that the savannah is on fire.

While there is a planet to save from overheating and emerging countries are asking rich and polluting countries to put ten times more money on the table to help them turn to greener energies, these are the speeches by the Azerbaijani leader that attract attention. The latter uses his international platform to settle scores with Emmanuel Macron’s France, whom he accuses of crimes in New Caledonia. A nice diversion.

In principle, civil society should put pressure so that COP29 does not give birth to a mouse, but in Azerbaijan, dissent lands activists and journalists in prison, as demonstrated by a Human Rights Watch report which, at in early October, signaled “a vicious assault on dissent ahead of the climate conference.”

It is therefore in neighboring Georgia, itself shaken by a post-election protest movement, that the Swede Greta Thunberg and other environmental activists organized a demonstration on Monday to denounce the “greenwashing” and the repression underway in Baku .

A background noise. A postcard in the middle of the desert.

It’s a shame. Well-felt criticism remains the best way to move the planet forward. The Sphere offers an example. The instigators of the Las Vegas project have announced that they eventually plan to use 80% solar energy to power their controversial ball of light.

Now it remains to be seen whether this gesture will also concern the second Sphere, which, we learned last month, will be built in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. Or if once again, the reality of a kingdom fueled by petrodollars will undermine good intentions.