In the conference hall right next to Baku's Olympic Stadium, UAE Industry Minister Sultan Al Jaber handed over the gavel to his Azerbaijani colleague Mukhtar Babayev, marking the start of COP29, the annual Conference of the Parties on climate change.

Like a year ago in Dubai, the summit will be led by an oil industry man: Azerbaijani Environment Minister Babayev was an executive at Socar, Azerbaijan's state oil company, for 25 years. Nearly half of the former Soviet republic's GDP depends on oil and gas production.

Monday was marked by ceremonial events, accreditation procedures and hotel check-in for participants. This year, the organizers distributed about 70,000 passes. The schedule includes meetings until Nov. 22, and the highlight is expected in the second half of the summit, when the final document with the task list for governments is usually discussed. In recent years, in order to close with an agreement – even a very modest one – the conference has needed extra time.

Perhaps because of how it went last year, or perhaps because of Donald Trump, no one at the COP that kicked off among the oil wells of the Caucasus had great expectations.

The truth is that these summits rarely generate momentous breakthroughs,........

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