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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Greta Thunberg

A ‘Cop of peace’? How can authoritarian, human rights-trashing Azerbaijan possibly host that?

Security personnel walk outside the venue for the Cop29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, 9 November 2024.
Security personnel walk outside the venue for the Cop29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, 9 November 2024. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP

During rapidly escalating climate and humanitarian crises, another authoritarian petrostate with no respect for human rights is hosting Cop29 – the UN’s latest annual climate summit that starts today and is being held after the re-election of a climate-denier US president.

Cop meetings have proven to be greenwashing conferences that legitimise countries’ failures to ensure a livable world and future and have also allowed authoritarian regimes like Azerbaijan and the two previous hosts – the United Arab Emirates and Egypt – to continue violating human rights.

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