The government of Azerbaijan has appointed its environment minister Mukhtar Babayev to be the president of the Cop29 climate talks in Baku in November.
While Babayev will chair the talks, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister Yalchin Rafiyev will be his lead negotiator, according to the Cop28 presidency.
Babayev spent 26 years at Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil and gas company Socar, where he tried to limit the company’s environmental damage, before becoming environment minister in 2018.
One negotiator who met Babayev recently described him as “nice” and “soft” but added “you don’t feel the authority and status like from [Cop28 president] Sultan [Al-Jaber], I don’t feel he is an independent person able to push for phasing out fossil fuels globally”.
Rafiyev is a newcomer to climate diplomacy. He did not attend the Cop26 or Cop27 climate talks and his active X (formerly known as Twitter) account has only mentioned climate change once in over six years.
Babayev will be the 24th man – and the fourth man in a row – to chair the Cop climate talks compared to only five women.
A Socar veteran
With Azerbaijan’s media severely restricted, there is not much information publicly available about Babayev other than his official ministry biography and leaked US diplomatic cables.
What is known is that he grew up in Baku, went to university in Moscow and served in the Soviet military in the late 1980s.
After Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union, he joined the newly-named State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (Socar) in 1992, where he stayed for 26 years.
After a stint in marketing, he was appointed the company’s vice-president of ecological affairs, which involved trying to reverse the environmental damage caused by the company.
In this position, he hosted an international conference on rehabilitating contaminated soils in 2008, where he warned that a drop in the oil price could have a negative impact on the company’s efforts to clean Azerbaijan’s soil.
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Around this time, the US ambassador in Baku Anne Derse said he told her that he wanted to change the company’s attitude towards the environment while still developing the country’s oil and gas production.
Derse says Babayev joked to the company’s then vice-president for field development that they were now enemies as he wanted to change the way Socar develops its resources and his colleague wanted to continue business as usual.
“On a broader scale,” Derse said, “Babayev said his mission was to “change the mentality” of Azerbaijanis about their responsibilities to preserve the environment”.
She concluded concluded that he “seems enthusiastic and in possession of a clear vision of what he hopes to accomplish”.
While in this position, Babayev became a member of parliament for the ruling party. In 2018, Azerbaijan’s authoritarian ruler Ilham Aliyev appointed him environment minister.
A new beat
While Cop presidents front the talks, they delegate much of the behind the scenes work to their lead negotiator.
Previous lead negotiators like Archie Young, Mohammed Nasr and Hana Alhashimi have been experienced climate diplomats.
Cop29’s lead negotiator will be 36-year old Yalchin Rafiyev. The United Nations participant logs suggest his first climate meeting was the annual talks in Bonn in June 2023 followed by Cop28 in November.
Joanna Depledge researches climate talks at Cambridge University. She told Climate home that “Rafiyev seems to be a rather unknown quantity”.
She said this will make it harder for him to establish his leadership, good working relationships and trust – particularly as he’s been appointed later than usual, with just 11 months to go.
“But”, she added, “there is still time for the Azerbaijani presidency team to hit the ground running and to plough political energy and resources into the process.”
After an international relations degree from Baku State University, Rafiyev studied at the Nato defence college in Rome and the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Austria.
He joined Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry in 2007 and spent several years in their Austrian embassy before representing the country with the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Depledge said that “Rafiyev’s extensive experience in the Azerbaijani diplomatic service, including a stint working on UN affairs in Geneva, will serve him well. But he has a lot of catching up to do”.
In 2018, he joined the ministry’s international security department where he stayed until Aliyev appointed him deputy foreign minister in September 2023.
In 2020, Azerbaijan launched a victorious six-week war with Armenia which has led to continuing tensions between the two. Much of his X feed criticises alleged genocide by Armenia.
When Azerbaijan was chosen as the host of Cop29, he posted: “Finally it is official! After World Urban Forum, Azerbaijan was granted the right to host the biggest United Nations event (COP29) in Baku.”
The Eastern European group of nations chose Azerbaijan as Cop29 host at Cop28, after Russia vetoed any European Union member state hosting the talks.
An unexpected choice
E3G negotiations analyst Tom Evans described it as an “unusual and unexpected” choice because Azerbaijan “doesn’t have a long track record of diplomacy at the [UN climate arm]”.
Azerbaijan gets two-thirds of its revenue from oil and gas, one of the highest percentages in the world and more than the Cop28 host – the United Arab Emirates.
The country has been ruled for 20 years by Ilham Aliyev, who took over as president from his father. According to Human Rights Watch, the government had at least 30 political dissidents in its prisons in 2022.
The campaign group said that restrictive laws continued to impede nongovernmental organizations from operating independently and that there are restrictions on media and systemic torture of prisoners.
The post Azerbaijan appoint state oil company veteran as Cop29 president appeared first on Climate Home News.
Azerbaijan appoint state oil company veteran as Cop29 president
One of the key expected outcomes from the upcoming COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, is the launch of a “just transition mechanism”.
This follows years of calls from civil society to support a “just transition” as countries shift towards low-emissions energy systems and away from fossil fuels.
At the COP30 UN climate talks last year in the Brazilian city of Belém parties agreed to establish a “mechanism” to support this goal, called the “Belém-Antalya mechanism” (BAM).
Groups that have championed the BAM want it to act as a central hub on just transitions, providing support for workers and communities around the world.
However, the details of exactly what the much-touted BAM will consist of remain vague, with developed and developing countries disagreeing about its functions and purpose.
Disagreements continued at the UN climate talks in Bonn in June 2026, including on the crucial question of how the BAM will be financed.
Here, Carbon Brief looks at where the idea for the BAM came from, how it could support just transitions and what to expect from COP31.
How has a ‘just transition’ featured in UN climate talks?
A “just transition” is the idea that workers and communities should be supported in the shift to a low-carbon economy. It is a central principle behind the idea of climate justice.
Often, the term refers to those linked to the fossil-fuel industry, but it can also refer to transitions taking place in agriculture, heavy industry and various other sectors.
The concept originated in the 1980s, when US labour unions forged alliances with environmental justice groups. It has since become a key part of international climate discussions.
The preamble to the 2015 Paris Agreement includes a commitment to “tak[e] into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities”.
Bert De Wel, policy officer at the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), tells Carbon Brief:
“The labour movement is very happy with the wide audience and broad political support that the concept has received since its inception in the 1980s. The inclusion in the Paris Agreement, with the reference to the creation of decent work and quality jobs was a milestone for the movement. While other demands have been added…we continue to stress the labour dimension as being central to the concept.”
Three years after the creation of the Paris Agreement, at COP24 in the former coal-mining city of Katowice, the Polish presidency highlighted the issue of just transitions.
The need for carbon-cutting policies to ensure “a just transition of the workforce” that creates “decent work and quality jobs” was included in the “Silesia declaration”, issued by the presidency during the first week of COP24.
While the declaration was only signed by 50 countries – roughly a quarter of the parties at the summit – it was still “noted” in the final COP text.
This helped to drive momentum behind the idea, culminating in formal agreement at COP27 in Egypt to launch a “work programme on just transition” (JTWP).
De Wel says the establishment of the JTWP was a “major step forward” that allowed parties to “speak about just transition in more concrete terms”.
In the years since, negotiators have worked to flesh out the JTWP, with disagreements between parties about what its purpose should be.
Broadly, developed countries would like it to focus on domestic workforces, while some nations want a more global outlook, including support for transitions in developing countries.
The JTWP has proved a challenging negotiating space, with talks at the COP29 summit in 2024 closing without an agreement, in what one observer dubbed a “betrayal”.
However, despite these frustrations, parties at COP30 in Brazil agreed to establish a new institutional mechanism on just transitions, which has become widely known as the BAM. The move was hailed as a “victory” by civil society.
Where did the ‘just transition mechanism’ come from?
In the run-up to COP30, civil society began to push for the establishment of an “institutional arrangement” that would move work under the JTWP from talk into action.
(This was originally called the “Belém action mechanism” by civil society groups, who subsequently updated this to the “Belém-Antalya mechanism” following the outcome at COP30. However, in the JTWP text agreed at COP30 it is only described as a “mechanism”, sometimes also referred to as the “just transition mechanism”.)
Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition at NGO umbrella group Climate Action Network (CAN) International, tells Carbon Brief:
“The idea of the mechanism emerged from the collaboration of civil society, trade unions, feminist groups, youth and Indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC.
“It was clear that the kind of activities being run under the JTWP – two dialogues a year and one ministerial – would not support the delivery of just-transition strategies on the ground, so a new approach was developed to get words into action.”
Following the inception of the idea, civil society did “tonnes of stuff to boost it up the agenda”, Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, a senior campaigner at the charity War on Want, tells Carbon Brief.
This ranged from presenting demands and proposals to different constituents, organising joint letters and writing policy papers, all the way through to designing logos, creating memes and even a song.
These efforts ultimately paid off: during the Bonn climate negotiations in June 2025, one draft text included the idea for a new institutional arrangement. One of the options in the draft text was for a “toolbox, guidance framework, global platform, technical assistance network [or] mechanism”.
![Paragraph 28 of the JTWP text published 25 June 2025. The text reads "28. Options for further implementation of the United Arab Emirates just transition work programme Option 1: Improving existing modalities Option 2: New institutional arrangements [toolbox, guidance framework, global platform, technical assistance network, mechanism] Option 3: Defer decision to 2026"](https://www.carbonbrief.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/para28-1024x334.png)
This inclusion was broadly welcomed as a “big win” for civil society groups, although parties acknowledged that more needed to be done to flesh out the idea.
Going into COP30, civil society groups continued to push the idea of creating a BAM, with protests, banners and badges visible around the venue.
Early in negotiations, the G77 and China – a large coalition of developing countries at UN climate talks – put forward their own proposal for a just transition “mechanism”. This, they suggested, could provide technical assistance, support international cooperation and help to foster partnerships in an effort to address implementation gaps.
Their proposal faced initial pushback from developed-country parties including Norway, the UK and others, who opposed it due to concerns that it would duplicate existing systems and require additional funding.
Developed countries also opposed the use of the term “mechanism”, with the EU suggesting an “action plan” as a potential alternative. Nevertheless, the creation of a “mechanism” was included in the final draft text on the JTWP.
This text was formally approved during the COP30 closing plenary to extended applause from many in the hall.
In a statement at the time, Chiara Martinelli, director at CAN Europe, welcomed the decision:
“Delivering BAM was a major civil society win. It creates a coordinated institutional home to drive forward progress on the just transition.”
The decision to develop the mechanism included a request for parties to work over the subsequent year – through to COP31 – on a plan to get things started.
What role could the mechanism play in facilitating ‘just transitions’?
According to civil society, the BAM could help tackle the fractured just-transition landscape by centralising resources and helping to overcome a number of barriers.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Rosemberg says the just-transition space “lacks coordination and the right kind of support and is quite disconnected from climate action imperatives”. She adds:
“The BAM can play a role in bringing those [people] trying to make just transition happen together, identify gaps and barriers, foster cooperation and accelerate support.”
Civil society has put forward a number of proposals likely to inform the structure of the BAM. Most consist of a mechanism with three parts, which would encompass and expand upon the work that is currently being carried out under the JTWP.
One proposal by a coalition of five NGOs suggests the mechanism is formed of a steering body, a “knowledge arm” and an “implementation arm”.
The steering body would coordinate the work of the two arms of the BAM, including deciding the topics that should be discussed under the ongoing JTWP, which will continue to feature in climate negotiations. They suggest the body would recommend topics that require negotiation when “gaps that require political guidance are identified”.
Their proposal is illustrated in the infographic below, showing the steering body acting as a central hub for work within the BAM.
The final part of the BAM, the “implementation arm”, would act as a hub to enable and coordinate technical, financial and knowledge-based assistance for those pursuing a just transition.
Rosemberg says the vision of civil society is for work to go “beyond negotiators’ dialogues”. She says the BAM could enable the organisation of a “matchmaking platform” to provide support faster, as well as dedicated groups to identify and mobilise financial resources. She adds:
“Finally, through bottom-up identification of barriers, the BAM can also allow a discussion on enabling just transition that is informed by practitioners. The BAM can show that implementation does not necessarily mean taking issues outside of the UNFCCC.”
A separate proposal for the structure of the BAM from the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice (DCJ) – a separate coalition of NGOs – similarly proposes three elements. These would be: coordination and coherence; knowledge generation; and international cooperation and support.
Sealey-Huggins, who is affiliated with DCJ, notes:
“If it works in practice, what we’ll see is a cascade of just-transition policies implemented across countries, across sectors in a unifying, transformational moment for justice-centered climate action, and that will be the key to unlocking the transition that’s been missing so far.”
Another proposal for the BAM comes from the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics. It suggests the three functions of the mechanism should be capacity-building, technical assistance and knowledge-sharing, but it recommends a dual-arm structure comprising a policy arm and an operational arm.
De Wel tells Carbon Brief that while there is “rather broad consensus on the functions”, parties are pushing in “very different directions” on how the BAM will be set up.
What are the financial implications of the mechanism?
Within UN climate negotiations, some parties have raised concerns about the potential cost of the mechanism.
The push to launch the BAM comes at a time when the UNFCCC itself is facing a funding gap, following the US withdrawal. Several other parties have also delayed or reduced their contributions, in response to changes in domestic priorities.
This has led to the UNFCCC cancelling events and not filling vacated positions, as the organisation struggles to carry out its existing functions.
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As such, some parties have expressed hesitancy about creating another mechanism under the remit of the UNFCCC, which also requires funding. However, proponents of the BAM argue that the costs of running it would be minimal.
Rosemberg tells Carbon Brief that the BAM represents “an opportunity to streamline and make efficient use of public resources”. She adds:
“The mechanism does not necessarily require the creation of a costly new institution. Instead, it can leverage existing climate-finance channels and philanthropy.”
She adds that a “similar body” to the potential mechanism, the Climate Technology Centre and Network, costs less than $10m a year. Rosemberg notes that this is “not an impossible amount to be found if there is political will to make just transition happen”.
De Wel notes that the mechanism will build on existing work inside the UNFCCC and out, including the International Labour Organization’s “just transition policy gateway”. He further emphasises that “we’re clearly not asking for a new [just-transition] fund, we want all climate finance to be just-transition proof”.
Alongside highlighting the potential efficiencies of the BAM design, many have argued that the potential benefits are well worth the cost of the new mechanism, with Sealey-Huggins telling Carbon Brief:
“The cost to the [BAM] secretariat pales in comparison to the potential benefit of the action.”
What is likely to happen in Antalya?
Despite the “victory” in Belém of agreeing to set up the new just-transition mechanism, climate negotiations in Bonn in June 2026 quickly hit sticking points.
While Bonn did ultimately agree on a “skeleton” draft text to send forward for further negotiations at COP31, many details still need to be agreed in Antalya for the BAM to start functioning.
De Wel cautions that a “swift approval of the agenda of COP31 allowing parties to start the negotiations” is “crucial”. He adds:
“We can’t lose any time, there is so much work that needs to be done on [just transition]. Then we need a constructive approach by the major country blocs. If one of them starts playing tactical games, then it will be lost.”
In a submission to the UNFCCC earlier this year, CAN called for a series of measures to get the BAM up and running. This includes calling for a decision to be made on a first face-to-face meeting of a “just-transition committee” – a core part of the mechanism in the group’s proposal – to be held in April 2027.
Ahead of COP31, negotiating groups such as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the least developed countries (LDCs) and the African group expressed support for the mechanism and called for it to be focused on implementation.
The EU also supported the launch of the mechanism, but along with other parties cautioned that it should be complementary to the JTWP.
While no submissions opposed the creation of the mechanism, groups such as LDCs called for a focus on “means of implementation” – commonly understood as finance – highlighting it is likely to continue to be a key point of discussion in the upcoming summit.
Sealey-Huggins tells Carbon Brief what his “pie in the sky best-case scenario vision” for the outcome at COP31 would look like. He continues:
“G77 and China make the case again that the mechanism must be equally resourced. It must be well-designed. It must include people’s participation. It must address the barriers to implementation of just transition. It must facilitate the means of implementation. It must ensure justice at the very heart of climate action.
“And then it’s agreed and it’s implemented immediately. So this work begins straight after Antalya to start forming committees and other bodies that can undertake the implementation.”
However, Rosemberg cautions that there is still a “question mark [remaining over] the level of ambition of the [COP31] presidencies, who need to move from simply talking about establishing any [just-transition] mechanism to engaging parties, so that we get a mechanism that is fit for purpose”.
