UK Lobbyists Accused of ‘Greenwashing’ Azerbaijan ahead of COP Climate Summit

Crackdown on Human Rights

Azerbaijan has been accused of intensifying its crackdown on human rights and media freedom since the country was made host of the world’s most important climate conference.

Last July, Gubad Ibadoghlu, a political scientist at the London School of Economics, was arrested while visiting family in Azerbaijan. Ibadoghlu had been a vocal critic of the Aliyev regime.

“The regime’s main purpose is to eliminate those who stand against them. They saw my father as a threat, as a threat to their money, as a threat to their power. That was enough for them to decide that they needed to find a way to stop them,” his son Ibad, 24, told Democracy for Sale on a video call from Sweden, where he lives along with his sister and mother.

Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International said. “Azerbaijan is hosting an international conference on climate justice while actively undermining the main pillars of climate activism – repressing all forms of critical expression and protests and dismantling local civil society.”

Earlier this year, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said that “having oil and gas deposits is not our fault. It’s a gift from God.”

Speaking at a climate diplomacy event in Berlin, Aliyev said that “as the head of a country rich in fossil fuels, of course, we will defend the right of these countries to continue investments and production because the world needs it.”

World leaders, ministers, and negotiators convene at the COP to negotiate and rubber stamp plans to jointly address climate change and its impacts.

Despite hosting the environmental summit, Azerbaijan is planning to ramp up oil and gas production over the next decade, according to a report from a German NGO.

The country, which earns 60 percent of its entire revenue from oil and gas, has also massively increased its gas exports to Europe since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lobbying Links

Founded in 2011 by a former aide to President Bill Clinton and headquartered in New York, Teneo has quickly grown into one of largest lobbying firms in the West.

A major part of Teneo’s growth has come from acquiring smaller lobbying firms including Tulchan Communications, set up by the former Conservative Party Chairman Andrew Feldman. Baron Feldman continues as a lobbyist for Teneo, leading the company’s UK strategy and communication business where clients include Thames Water, Severn Trent and McDonalds.

Shortly after the General Election, the firm also sought to bolster their links to the Labour government by appointing former Labour Cabinet minister Ben Bradshaw as a Senior Advisor

Although the US documents do not list Bradshaw as one of the individuals working on the Azerbaijan COP contract, when he was hired by Teneo, the firm’s UK chief executive Nick Claydon said: “Ben’s deep insights and experience in helping to understand the priorities and approach of the new Labour administration will be of tremendous benefit to Teneo’s clients around the world.”

Teneo’s senior managing director in the UK is Patrick Loughlan, one of Tony’s Blair’s former Downing Street special advisors and Labour’s former Director of Policy and Head of Research. The firm’s managing director Robert Fuller also spent six weeks volunteering to help Labour during the recent election campaign.

Both Teneo and the Azerbaijan government declined to comment.

(This article originally appeared on the website www.democracyforsale.com on November 3. Additional reporting by Peter Geoghegan.)