In a speech on Friday, the United Nations climate chief painted an optimistic picture of the fight against global warming while taking a jab at countries that avoid meeting their obligations by “hiding behind loopholes” in global agreements.
The comments delivered by Simon Stiell amounted to an early attempt to set expectations for the next round of United Nations climate talks, scheduled for November in Azerbaijan. It will be the second year running that a major exporter of fossil fuels hosts the talks (the last round was in the United Arab Emirates), a fact that has drawn sharp criticism given the central role of fossil fuels in producing the greenhouse gases that drive global warming.
The speech, in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, came on the heels of recent comments by the oil minister of Saudi Arabia that global agreements to fight climate change amounted to an à la carte arrangement in which countries could selectively decide what to do about fossil fuel use.
“Dodging the hard work ahead through selective interpretation would be entirely self-defeating for any government,” given that climate change affects all nations, Mr. Stiell said, according to a transcript of his prepared remarks.
Mr. Stiell’s U.N. agency convenes the summit, but the responsibility for shepherding the negotiations falls primarily on the host country and the conference president it appoints.
Azerbaijan, a major fossil fuel producer, named its environment minister, Mukhtar Babayev, as president of this year’s negotiations. Mr. Babayev spent more than a quarter century working at Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company and his selection made some climate advocates uneasy, in part because it echoed the appointment of his predecessor, Sultan Al Jaber, who presided over last year’s summit in Dubai.
