BAKU: The Azerbaijani capital is a burgeoning city with prospects directly borne from its immediate surroundings. To Baku’s east lies the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water and holder of rich and deep reserves of oil and gas, long exploited for energy and exports. And surrounding the city’s expanse are the harsh, sprawling oil fields of the Absheron peninsula, veined with “black gold” and few signs of life but the derricks endlessly drilling below the surface.
Baku is a city built on the foundations - on the living legacy - of oil. Extraction has been the main game for Azerbaijan, from its days as a Caucasian backwater in the mid 19th century, to becoming a crucial energy cog in the Soviet Union machine, to the years that have followed as an independent nation since 1991. The oil and gas sector accounts for an estimated 90 per cent of its exports and half of total gross domestic product.
These days Azerbaijan increasingly draws comparisons with Dubai for its bold architecture and audaciously ambitious growing skylines and waterfronts. Its grand boulevards play host to a Formula One grand prix every year and this month, the city extends its hosting duties to the world’s biggest and most important climate negotiations - the Conference of the Parties, the United Nations climate talks known as COP. But central to its presidency of COP29 will be to lead the world’s shift away from a fossil-fuel powered future, away from the very resources that have.
