Page 68 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine December 2024

68 Opinion
bne December 2024
plant in the Jabrayil district, describing it as another essential step in decarbonising the largest oil and gas terminal in the Caspian region, the Sangachal terminal.
Hence, as a part of SOCAR’s recent agreements with Chinese companies, a research and development centre in the renewable energy field will be established in Azerbaijan to facilitate joint projects.
SOCAR's vision of green energy is not limited only to the Karabakh region, as on November 17, the company inked a separate agreement with Masdar, the Asian Development Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction (EBRD) and Asian Infrastructure and Development Bank (AIIB) securing finance for the 445 MWac Bilasuvar and 315 MWac Neftchala solar projects, with the total cost expected to be more than $600mn. A separate agreement was signed on the same day with Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power on wind power production with a capacity of 3.5 gigawatts in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea.
Furthermore, SOCAR and Italgas S.p.A announced another new partnership at COP29 to promote innovation, efficiency and sustainability in gas distribution.
On the global stage
Despite the controversy, hosting COP29 clearly boosted Azerbaijan’s international profile. November 11 saw the arrival
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of dozens of governmental officials, top diplomats, foreign delegates and energy companies to attend the event. A major focus of COP29 was the establishment of a New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) for climate finance. To advance this objective, the presidency of COP29 has introduced 14 key initiatives that integrate climate action with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Moreover, to repeatedly emphasise the need to switch to renewable energy sources, the Azerbaijani government
has announced the Climate Finance Action Fund (CFAF)
to invest in climate action. The fund will be capitalised
with contributions from fossil fuel-producing countries
and companies across oil, gas and coal, and Azerbaijan
will be a founding contributor. As a result, a consensus has been reached on Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement and on raising annual climate finance commitments by multilateral financial institutions from $75bn to $170bn.
For the government of Azerbaijan, the COP29 event became
a milestone in promoting climate action, alternative energy sources, and decarbonisation, boosting its own image as a potential green energy producer and exporter. Such an image is vital for Azerbaijan to tackle criticism made by some Western countries during COP29, as well as to decrease dependence on fossil fuel exports, diversify its energy portfolio, and make additional inroads into the European market.
Trump 2.0 could be a blessing for Belarus bne IntelliNews
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko was quicker than many American news networks to pronounce Donald Trump the winner of the recent US presidential election. Lukashenko showered Trump with compliments, and pledged to personally nominate the US president-elect for the Nobel Peace Prize if he keeps his promise to “stop wars” overseas,” political analyst Artyom Shraibman said in a paper for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It is tempting to read Lukashenko’s flattery as just another world leader wanting to start off on the right foot with the incoming administration in Washington. In fact, there
is much more to it: Minsk genuinely hopes that Trump will keep his word by freezing the Ukraine war, defusing US-Russian tensions and helping anti-liberal mercantilism triumph in a once united West,” Shraibman added.
Bilateral relations with the United States hold few prospects for Minsk in and of themselves. Trump doesn’t care about small countries like Belarus and cares little for America’s role as
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self-appointed upholder of “freedom” everywhere. If anything, Trump’s admiration of strongmen argues that he will be more tolerant of Lukashenko than any other American leader.
But the wily Lukashenko is hoping for more. As the leader of a smallish and relatively poor country, the one thing Lukashenko excels at is playing other strong countries off against each other. Belarus remains heavily dependent on Russia but for years Lukashenko has flirted with the West to gain leverage in his negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to extract concessions on cheap gas and soft loans with aplomb.
Lukashenko’s regime is betting on a recalibration of US foreign policy under Trump that could thaw Belarus’ diplomatic isolation – achieved without Minsk conceding anything of note on human rights or democratic reforms. Lukashenko’s gambit hinges on Trump’s potential to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine and dial back US-Russian tensions, offering Belarus a way to re-emerge as a regional actor.