At the venue of COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 9, 2024. PETER DEJONG / AP Afghanistan will participate in COP29 which opens Monday in Azerbaijan, a first since the return to power of the Taliban government in 2021, announced Saturday, November 9, an Afghan diplomat official to Agence France-Presse (AFP). “A delegation from the Afghan government will be in Baku,” said Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesman for the foreign ministry. Afghanistan, the sixth most vulnerable country to climate change, is struggling to cope with flash floods, droughts and other natural disasters that scientists link to climate change. In May alone, more than 350 Afghans died in floods. The Afghan Environment Agency (NEPA) has already been invited to international summits, but its officials have never until now obtained the necessary visas to participate, Rouhollah Amin, in charge of the climate change to NEPA. The status of the Afghan delegation at COP 29 – which will bring together 198 countries at least until November 22 – was not immediately clear but sources told AFP that it could obtain that of “ observer”. After Baku, Kabul hopes to obtain visas from Riyadh to then attend the COP16 on desertification in Saudi Arabia in December, he continues, without being able to give more details on the delegation that Afghanistan could send there. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Afghanistan, floods kill more than 300 people Read later “Do not link climate change to politics” Azerbaijan, a hydrocarbon exporting nation stuck between Russia and Iran, has reopened its embassy in Kabul in February, without officially recognizing the Taliban government. NEPA, for its part, continues to plead so that the breakdown in cooperation between Kabul and the world does not apply to environmental issues. “Climate change is a humanitarian subject”, recently reiterated to AFP its number two, Zainulabedine Abid. “We call on the international community not to link climate change issues to politics,” he insisted. Afghanistan, then held by the former regime of the Islamic Republic, supported by a Western coalition routed by the Taliban three years ago, signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 supposed to limit global warming to 1.5°C. As such, Kabul is supposed to present its “nationally determined contributions” (NDC) every five years to the rest of the signatories. This file began to be compiled before the Taliban government returned to power. “In 2023, we decided that we at least need to finalize this document, whether the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change accepts it or not,” says Mr. Amin. “It’s a national question,” he insists, “we must complete this document.” Also read (2019) | Article reserved for our subscribers In Herat, Afghanistan, climate-displaced people are reduced to poverty Read later The Taliban authorities had believed for a time that they could participate in the COP28 held last year in the United Arab Emirates, a country which has already received several Taliban leaders. But, due to lack of invitation and visas, they had to pass their turn. The director general of NEPA, Mawlawi Matioul Haq Khalis – a former Taliban negotiator and the son of Younous Khalis, one of the figures of modern jihadism – recently denounced this forced absence, calling on the international community to change the situation at COP29 , according to the state agency Bakhtar. Because, invariably, NEPA recalls the figures: in 2019, Afghanistan was responsible for 0.08% of global greenhouse gas emissions. “It’s nothing” and, yet, Afghanistan is one of the countries “most affected by climate change,” laments Mr. Amin. Read the article | Article reserved for our COP29 subscribers: “The environmental issue and that of human rights will be inextricably linked” Read later Le Monde with AFP Reuse this content
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