As Azerbaijan prepares to host this month's global climate summit, it is getting plenty of the attention it has sought. But as often happens when this oil-rich, authoritarian state is home to a high-profile international event, much of the publicity is bad.
Baku surely expected it would get criticism from the likes of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) when it won its bid last year to host the 29th UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) on November 11-22. It has also been taking flak within business and finance circles, however.
Unflattering pieces in the Financial Times and The Economist have accused it of using the COP-adjacent cred to deflect from its own "critically insufficient" climate plans, "launder" the reputation of authoritarian President Ilham Aliyev, and generally "greenwash" the regime, distracting from a poor human rights record and other faults.
"I cannot but touch upon the smear campaign by some media outlets aimed at tarnishing Azerbaijan's image under false pretext," Aliyev groused publicly at a pre-COP meeting on October 10. "Such vain attempts cannot derail us from achieving our noble mission to cope with the negative impacts of climate change."
It is a drill Azerbaijan has been through before. The country has long regarded holding large-scale events as a path toward international prestige. It hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 2012. It has bid repeatedly, albeit unsuccessfully, to host the Summer Olympics and has hosted two Olympics-like events: the European Games in 2015 and the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. Since 2017, it has hosted the Formula One circuit's Azerbaijan Grand Prix through downtown Baku.
The Azerbaijani government is drawn to such hosting opportunities for "brand-making purposes," said Najmin Kamilsoy, an analyst and doctoral candidate in public policy at Charles University in Prague.
At the same time, "the government is very sensitive to the negative attention of the international media ahead of the event," he told RFE/RL. "They want as many Western stakeholders as possible to attend COP29, and they want their organization of the event to be regarded as successful."
Azerbaijan has gotten bad press for big events in the past. But the problem could be magnified with COP29, given its planetary stakes.
"I don't think the government was fully aware that COP was not Formula One or Eurovision, that it had global implications," said Arzu Geybulla, an Azerbaijani journalist and co-author of a new report by the U.K.-based think tank Chatham House.
COP29's Azerbaijani organizers are paying PR firm Teneo $4.7 million to manage publicity for the event. A Teneo filing under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act shows hundreds of attempts to reach out to the press, with a clear emphasis on major English-language media.
One of the organizers' key narratives about the conference is that it will be dedicated to "peace." They have promoted the idea of a "COP Truce," calling on warring parties around the world to suspend fighting for the duration of the event. Chatham House called the idea "incongruous" and "implausible" in light of Azerbaijan's recent military offensive to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and its continuing pressure on neighboring Armenia.
It also argued that the proclaimed peace agenda risks distracting from COP29's key climate challenges and thus making it a failure.
"A poor COP29 outcome could invite allegations of, at best, greenwashing. At worst, it could bring accusations of a dereliction of duty," the Chatham House authors wrote. "Recriminations towards Azerbaijan would likely damage its international reputation and undermine goodwill towards its government, as opposed to strengthening or resetting the country's international relations as the leadership might hope in the event that COP29 is perceived as successful."
In its pushback against the bad press, Azerbaijani officials and pro-government media have relied on a well-established playbook, including blaming it on the global Armenian lobby.
They also argue that it's illogical that Azerbaijan would seek to "greenwash" by inviting attention.
"It's completely counterintuitive because what is happening now is that there is a much greater emphasis and spotlight on Azerbaijan," Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's ambassador to the United Kingdom, told Times Radio. "Who would do this? Who would try to avoid scrutiny by inviting the spotlight?"
Azerbaijani Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Mukhtar Babayev, a longtime state-oil executive who is also president of COP29, blamed unnamed ill-wishers.
"Azerbaijan has achieved significant success: restoration of territorial integrity, economic achievements, strong positions in the international arena. Some countries don't perceive this. It is difficult for them to assess it fairly. However, we expected [such a campaign]," he said.
But he praised the country's PR representatives for fighting back.
"Thanks to the work of this professional team, there has not been a week this year when we have not provided information and made statements to international media," Babayev said. "Now [foreign journalists] all understand and see the strength of our country."
In the end, though, the audience for such mega-events is less international NGOs and press than international policymakers, said Kamilsoy.
"For the Azerbaijani elite, COP is an intergovernmental platform and the civil-society dimension of it is negligible," he said.
As a result, Azerbaijan's government might be increasingly unconcerned at the criticism.
"It feels emboldened and totally dismissive on the accountability front, both internally and externally," Geybulla said.
