AZERBAIJAN HAS APPOINTED a former oil executive as president of the United Nations climate conference that the country is set to host in November.

COP29, the 29th annual iteration of the UN’s international climate conference, is due to take place in Baku this year.

Each year, the host country appoints a representative to act as president of the talks, and Azerbaijan has named Mukhtar Babayev for the role.

Babayev spent 26 years at the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (Socar), during which time he served as its vice-president of ecological affairs.

He later became a member of parliament and was made the country’s minister of ecology and natural resources in 2018.

It follows the United Arab Emirates coming under fire at COP28 last month over the presidency of Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, also an oil executive-turned-politician.

Azerbaijan was approved as the host for COP29 relatively late after discord between countries in the UN’s Eastern European region, whose turn it was to nominate a base for the conference.

Russia opposed giving the conference to any EU member states, leaving only a handful of eligible countries.

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Azerbaijan and Armenia had both entered bids to host the conference, with Armenia ultimately agreeing to withdraw.

Tensions between the two countries were at a high last year when Azerbaijan seized the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been controlled by ethnic Armenians for three decades.