Azerbaijan's organizing committee for the U.N. climate summit in 2024 is expanding by almost 50% in size with the addition of 12 women.
Capitulating to critics, the oil-rich country's President Ilham Aliyev on Friday ordered changes to the makeup of the formerly all-male committee. Aliyev appointed another man and 12 women to the committee – bringing it to 41 members; 29% are female.
“This is positive progress but we're still far from a 50/50 gender balance. This is a quick fix but not enough," said Elise Buckle, co-founder and co-director of SHE Changes Climate, a global campaign that raised the alarm just days earlier.
The campaign advocates for the inclusion of women as active participants in climate decision-making, noting that the planetary emergency caused by the climate and nature crises "affects all of humanity, not just half."
Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera also had said that unless there was female representation on the committee, women may decide to skip the summit and that would result in "no quorum ... so ... no COP."
Two of the additional women on Azerbaijan's organizing committee head up human rights and humanitarian aid in the nation's capital, Baku.
The summits, known as COPs, are a Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, the Bonn, Germany-based secretariat and platform for the U.N. climate summits. Women have been president of just five of the past 28 COPs.
Mexico's largely female-led climate delegation last year pushed for the UNFCCC to crack down on harassment, sexism and bullying at U.N.-hosted climate talks, after revealing what female national negotiators endured at COP27 hosted by Egypt at Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022.
As a result, the secretariat, also known as U.N. Climate Change, set up an internal task force. That led to a stricter code of conduct with a "zero tolerance" policy for events and more guidance on prevention, reporting of misconduct and training.
"We recognize the utmost importance of ensuring climate change conferences are inclusive, respectful and safe for everyone," said U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. "Equal and meaningful participation in events can only take place in a safe and inclusive working environment."
More climate summits hosted by oil producers
Azerbaijan, which hosted the climate summit with the backing of other Eastern European nations and in part due to Russia's intervention, has an energy mix heavily concentrated in fossil fuels, with oil and gas accounting for more than 98% of total supply, according to the International Energy Agency. More than 90% of Azerbaijan's exports are fossil fuels.
Azerbaijan’s ecology and natural resources minister, Mukhtar Babayev, is in line to serve as COP29 president and spent more than a quarter-century working for the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic, or Socar.
The previous U.N. climate summit, COP28, also was hosted by a petrostate – the United Arab Emirates, the world's seventh-largest oil producer – and had an oil company CEO serving as the summit's president. But two-thirds of the U.A.E.'s organizing committee members were women.
COP28 negotiators reached a breakthrough climate agreement that calls for slowly weaning the world off fossil fuels, the first time such language has been adopted, but no "phase out" as more than 100 countries sought.
At their meeting in Dubai hosted by the United Arab Emiraates, representatives of almost 200 nations agreed in December to begin collectively “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science."
Brazil, the host of COP30 in 2025, is the world's ninth-largest oil producer, accounting for 3.5% of global output, according to IEA. It has said it will start the processing of joining the OPEC+ oil cartel this year.
