Azerbaijan hosts third informal Shamakhi Meeting on climate talks

The third informal Shamakhi Meeting was held in the Azerbaijani city of Shamakhi on July 22-23, with Azerbaijan organizing and hosting the event in cooperation with Türkiye and Australia, chairs of COP31, Report informs, citing Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry.

The meeting brought together the chairs of negotiating groups under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, as well as heads of delegations from a number of states that are parties to the convention.

More than 70 representatives from 34 countries and the UNFCCC Secretariat attended the event. Participating states were represented by ministers, deputy ministers, climate envoys of heads of state, chairs of UNFCCC negotiating groups, heads of delegations of parties and other senior officials.

As in previous years, the Shamakhi Meeting focused on key areas on the climate negotiations agenda, including climate finance, just transition, adaptation to the effects of climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Discussions also covered the COP31 presidency's action agenda, as well as the Belem 1.5 Mission carried out under the Troika mandate of the COP29, COP30 and COP31 presidencies.

Participants held an informal exchange of views on the outcomes of the 64th session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies, held in Bonn in June this year, ways to address the main challenges that emerged during those discussions, and how these issues could contribute to decision-making at COP31 in Türkiye.

Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister and COP29 chief negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev, COP31 Chief Executive Officer and Turkish Deputy Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Fatma Varank, and COP31 Deputy President for Negotiations Sally Box addressed the opening and closing ceremonies.

Video messages from Azerbaijani Presidential Representative on Climate Issues Mukhtar Babayev and COP30 Chief Executive Officer Ana Toni, Brazil's national secretary for climate change at the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, were also shown at the opening ceremony.

The Foreign Ministry noted that the Shamakhi Meeting has become one of the key events in the annual COP calendar. Its unique format allows climate negotiators to hold open, transparent and result-oriented discussions in an informal setting, helping resolve challenges more flexibly during the preparation of decisions expected to be adopted at upcoming COP sessions.

Participants expressed support for turning the Shamakhi Meeting into a traditional platform. Ethiopia's delegation, representing the host country of COP32 in 2027, said it was ready to organize the fourth Shamakhi Meeting jointly with Azerbaijan in July next year.