COP29 host nation Azerbaijan has proclaimed a lofty ambition for this year’s UN climate summit: pausing the conflicts currently wreaking havoc around the world.
If governments follow Baku’s plan, theatres of war – from Gaza to Ukraine – would fall still next month while diplomats fight over the finer details of climate action under the “COP Truce” vision championed by the Azerbaijan presidency of the November 11-22 COP29 talks.
Baku has spoken proudly of its initiative gaining “significant traction”, with 127 countries and nearly 1,100 non-state groups supporting the appeal so far.
But a list of early endorsers features several warring states, deepening skepticism about the real impact and intentions of the initiative at a time when conflicts – which number more than 50 today – are provoking insecurity and severe humanitarian crises in many parts of the globe.
Speaking to Climate Home, veteran climate campaigners and geopolitical experts criticised the COP Truce as a “performative… PR exercise” and “a distraction” from a separate UN-supported push to strengthen climate action in conflict-affected regions.
Meanwhile, as hopes dwindle of Azerbaijan clinching its own peace deal with neighbour Armenia by COP29, Laurence Broers, associate fellow with Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, warned about the risks of the “peace COP brand” looking “empty of content”.
World peace aspirations
Alongside the formal government negotiations, the annual climate summits see COP presidencies launch an ever-growing list of voluntary initiatives, hoping to get as many as possible governments, business groups and civil society organisations to sign onto them.
Azerbaijan has pinned its appeal for a “COP Truce” at the top of its list of voluntary declarations for COP29. Taking inspiration from the Olympic Truce, first established in ancient Greece, Baku wants all fighting parties worldwide to lay down their arms while country leaders and diplomats discuss climate policy.
Modi, Macron, Xi and Biden among many leaders yet to request COP29 speech
The initiative “will highlight the importance of peace and climate action” and “aim to remind all nations of the interplay between conflict and climate change”, the COP29 presidency said.
The centrepiece is a 10-line “solemn appeal”, which governments and observer groups are being urged to endorse.
Its signatories “call on everyone to observe the COP Truce during the month of COP29” – but they are not required to explicitly commit to cease hostilities themselves. “It is a generic appeal for the international community to observe a ceasefire during the COP,” Yalchin Rafiyev, Azerbaijan’s lead negotiator for COP29, told Climate Home at a press briefing.
The inherent paradox is exemplified by some of the early backers of the initiative.
War-waging signatories
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the truce appeal has been supported by all member states of the “Non-Aligned Movement”, a forum of 120 countries originally set up in the Cold War era as a buffer between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The movement counts among its members several countries now involved in bloody civil wars and international conflicts, including Sudan, Myanmar and Palestine.
A Sudanese national flag is attached to a machine gun of Paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) soldiers. (Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas/File)
A COP29 official did not reply to Climate Home’s question asking what concrete purpose the COP Truce initiative would serve given the presence of warring countries among its signatories. But in emailed comments, they said the appeal “is meant to enhance ambition, set aside differences, and prioritize peace and climate action”.
The COP29 presidency has also been enlisting international non-state organisations to support the initiative, alongside governments.
It said nearly 1,100 groups have put their name next to the appeal so far. Climate Home requested a full list of signatories but a COP29 official said that would not be shared until November 15 during COP’s “Peace, Relief and Recovery Day”.
The only publicly available information shows support from around 100 NGOs linked to the Baku-based chapter of the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum. Listed signatories feature a wide range of predominantly grassroots groups in Central and Southeast Asia, including Uzbekistan’s ‘Council of Young Farmers’ and Azerbaijan’s ‘Erasmus Student Network’.
Scepticism and mild support
Climate Home has surveyed around a dozen international organisations deeply involved in the climate, conflict and human rights agendas at the COP. It found deep scepticism in some quarters – and no more than limited support for the initiative in others.
Tasneem Essop, executive director of the influential Climate Action Network and coordinator of the coalition of environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGO) at the UN talks, told Climate Home that the Azerbaijan presidency had approached the UNFCCC Observer Constituencies – including ENGO – in early September asking them to endorse the truce declaration.
“We had a number of important questions about the practical implications of the declaration and what it meant, for example, for our efforts to spotlight human rights abuses,” she said. “But they did not give us the time to engage properly, so obviously we did not sign on.”
CAN’s Tasneem Essop speaking at an event during COP27 in November 2022. Photo: ENB/IISD
Essop also said that “in its current form, it is a hollow and performative ‘motherhood and apple pie’ declaration that does not deal with the fundamental and systemic issues causing wars and conflict.”
“At best, it appears to simply be a PR exercise,” she added.
On the other hand, the COP Truce appeal has received the support of a different UN constituency representing local government and municipal authorities. Its coordinator Yunus Arikan, director of global advocacy at local government sustainability group ICLEI, told Climate Home they hoped the initiative could have “transformative impacts” despite the “huge challenges that lie ahead”.
“But even if this may not fulfill all its aspirations, we still believe it is a worthwhile effort, as it is a moral duty of all governments and leaders to prevent destruction of our livelihoods, either as a result of climate change or through armed conflicts and wars,” he added.
Conflict blind spot in climate action
Nonetheless, Azerbaijan’s appeal has raised an eyebrow among organisations that have been at the forefront of efforts to put a spotlight on the nexus between climate change and conflict at UN climate summits.
The UAE COP28 presidency last year inaugurated a thematic day dedicated to the connection between climate and peace. It culminated in a detailed declaration through which over 100 governments, NGOs and private-sector institutions committed to scale up climate action, including channeling more investment, in war-torn regions.
London-based think-tank ODI was one of the driving forces behind last year’s declaration, but told Climate Home it won’t be throwing its weight behind Azerbaijan’s ceasefire appeal.
“The COP29 Truce is a nice idea but it’s ultimately a distraction – and one that was always unlikely to succeed, as we saw from the failed Olympic truce earlier this year,” said Mauricio Vazquez, ODI’s head of policy for global risks and resilience.
Comment: Why we need new laws to end coal, oil and gas – now
“Noise” from the truce day should not deflect the focus from the “huge” conflict blind spot in climate action, he added.
“More than half of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries are also fragile or experiencing conflict – yet they receive only a fraction of the finance which goes to more stable places,” Vazquez said. “A temporary truce will not fix these issues.”
Humanitarian aid group Mercy Corps – another signatory of the COP28 declaration – told Climate Home it is still weighing up whether to join Azerbaijan’s truce appeal, but added that its focus is primarily on building momentum from last year’s initiative and turning pledges into action.
Nagorno-Karabakh legacy
Notwithstanding any concrete outcomes, the initiative is also widely seen by geopolitical analysts as an attempt by Azerbaijan to burnish its peace credentials just over a year after putting a forceful end to its decades-long conflict with Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Baku conquered the contested region in a two-part military offensive, concluding in autumn 2023, that led to the mass exodus of some 136,000 ethnic Armenians. For Armenian authorities and some human rights and legal experts, the drive amounted to “ethnic cleansing” – a view Azerbaijan categorically rejects.
In Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s net zero vision clashes with legacy of war
Top Azeri diplomats and government officials have drawn a direct link between the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh and the COP29 peace appeal.
Hikmet Hajiyev, chief foreign policy advisor to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, wrote last week in an op-ed for Newsweek that it “would be a mistake for us not to try” pushing for a COP Truce “when the COP29 meeting in Baku is itself the product of a truce – one few believed possible”.
Hajiyev was referring to a deal struck between Azerbaijan and Armenia in December 2023 that paved the way for Baku to host this year’s climate summit. Armenia backed Azerbaijan’s COP29 bid, while Baku agreed to release 32 Armenian prisoners captured during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Faltering peace process
That agreement was interpreted as a potential stepping stone towards a fully-fledged peace deal between the two nations, with watchers seeing COP29 as an ideal backdrop for the much-trailed accord to be finalised.
But hopes of that dwindled last week after President Aliyev turned down Armenia’s latest proposal to sign a peace deal, describing it as “unrealistic”. Armenia is absent from a preliminary list of countries sending their heads of state to speak at COP29’s high-level opening session, raising doubts over the participation of the country’s leaders at the summit.
Broers, of London-based think-tank Chatham House, said he does not expect the signing of a “significant” agreement “before, at or for a long time after the COP29 conference”.
“The statements in recent days and weeks show they are a long way off,” he told Climate Home. “What might be meaningful would be for Baku and Yerevan to use the COP29 venue to sign off on a new package of confidence-building measures on joint environmental action. Without some such steps, the whole ‘peace COP’ brand looks empty of content.”
(Reporting by Matteo Civillini; editing by Megan Rowling)
The post In a warring world, Azerbaijan’s COP29 truce appeal draws fire as “PR exercise” appeared first on Climate Home News.
In a warring world, Azerbaijan’s COP29 truce appeal draws fire as “PR exercise”
Discussing climate change can make a difference. Focusing on the impacts in everyday life is a good place to start, experts say.
When Bad Bunny climbed onto broken power lines during his Super Bowl halftime show, millions of viewers saw a spectacle. Climate communicators saw a lesson in how to talk about climate change.
Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny
Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:
“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.
“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.
“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.
“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.
“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”
-ENDS-
Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East
Climate Change
DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Iran war fallout continues
WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.
SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.
COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”
Around the world
- WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
- BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
- SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
- CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
- RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
- VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.
1%
The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
- Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
- Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)
Spotlight
New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation
This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.
Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.
The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.
Reductions vs removals
The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.
One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.
When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.
The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.
Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:
“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”
‘Global dialogue’
While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.
Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.
Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:
“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”
Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.
Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:
“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”
While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.
She added:
“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”
Watch, read, listen
COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.
THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.
SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.
Coming up
- 23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
- 24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
- 26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon
Pick of the jobs
- International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
- Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
- Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case appeared first on Carbon Brief.
-
Greenhouse Gases7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Climate Change7 months ago
Guest post: Why China is still building new coal – and when it might stop
-
Greenhouse Gases2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
-
Climate Change2 years ago嘉宾来稿：满足中国增长的用电需求 光伏加储能“比新建煤电更实惠”
-
Climate Change Videos2 years ago
The toxic gas flares fuelling Nigeria’s climate change – BBC News
-
Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
-
Renewable Energy2 years ago
GAF Energy Completes Construction of Second Manufacturing Facility