At COP28 last year, a former executive of the oil company Socar was appointed to chair the UN climate conference scheduled for next November.

Rashad Allahverdiyev, a ministry official said in an email last Friday that Mukhtar Babayev has been appointed president-designate of the 29th session of the Conference of Parties. Indeed, this is the second time in a row that one of the oil companies will chair the UN climate conference. Last year, the United Arab Emirates, hosts of COP28, chose Sultan Al Jaber, boss of the national company Adnoc, to chair the UN conference, which ended in December in Dubai, with a historic call for a “transition” away from fossil fuels, the first time that a COP launched such an