REACTIONS BOTTOM LINE: In the end, many expressed a mix of relief tinged with resignation given serious risks the deal could fall apart. But there was a mix of views, as the climate community braces for COP30 next year in Brazil. Glass half full: Britain’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband dubbed it “a critical 11th hour deal at the 11th hour for the climate.” U.N. Climate Change boss Simon Stiell said it had been “a difficult journey, but we’ve delivered a deal,” adding: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country." Glass half empty: “We came in good faith, with the safety of our communities and the wellbeing of the world at heart. Yet we have seen the very worst of political opportunism here at this COP,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, a country at the front line of climate change. Indian negotiator Chandni Raina slammed the $300 billion as a “paltry sum.” 3 QUICK TAKES ... Michael Bloss, climate and industrial policy spokesperson for the Greens in the European Parliament, said the figures in the deal were “insufficient to combat the climate crisis.” He also hit out at the fossil fuel alliance for “blocking agreement wherever they could.” He said a tax on oil and gas would contribute to achieving the overall climate finance target of $1.3 trillion. John Denton, secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce, said that “from a business perspective there is no time to lose in putting this agreement into action." He noted there’s a “major price tag associated with any delay,” given that extreme weather events cost the global economy $2 trillion over the past decade. But he highlighted the “urgent effort needed to remove established barriers to investments in climate solutions by the business community.” Ana Luiza Ferreira, environment secretary of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, welcomed Brazil’s announcement of its Nationally Determined Contribution at COP. “We need ambitious goals, and this is what the federal government has presented. But the issue now will be how to get finance to executive these projects. We need to implement the actions now. We have to be faster in defining the implementation. Subnational governments have a role here.” THE REAL AZERBAIJAN GRIM REALITY: Hidden away in an old apartment building, at the top of seven flights of stairs in central Baku, an Azerbaijani woman and her children are waiting. Over tea and cake, a domestic scene that’s worlds away from the high-level diplomacy taking place at Baku Stadium over the past two weeks, Lamiye Çerpanova reveals a side of Azerbaijan that has been kept well away from the cameras. Imprisoned: This week will mark the one-year anniversary of her husband Aziz Orujov's arrest. The founder of Kanal 13, an independent online TV channel, Orujov was arrested on Nov. 27, 2023 and put in pre-trial detention a day later. Like Yulia Navalnaya and Evgenia Kara-Murza, whose husbands were unlawfully imprisoned by Russia, Çerpanova is telling the story her husband can't. Full force of the law: Çerpanova shows me a video on her phone of Orujov being arrested by two men, their daughter clinging to her father’s leg as he is taken away. Holding her daughter, now aged 4, in her arms, Çerpanova says the child was traumatized by the experience, leading to speech delays. "We told her that they were taking him to the doctor,” Çerpanova said. “Now, when we visit him in prison, I tell her that her father works there and feeds the cat, so we bring cat food. One time we visited, she took off her shoes and said she would stay there. The guards asked, 'where would you sleep then?' She said 'in the arms of my dad.'” Quashing dissent: This is Orujov's second stint in prison. He was arrested in 2017 — his “crimes,” according to the authorities, were illegally building a house and money-laundering. He vehemently denies the charges, arguing he is actually being targeted for the crime of journalism. Kanal 13 covers a range of issues, from Russia's war in Ukraine to rising cost-of-living, to an investigation into houses built beside oil wells, allegedly leading to their residents getting cyanide poisoning. “Whether the court finds him guilty or not, if the government orders them to do so, Aziz will be imprisoned for eight years," said Çerpanova. “I worry about his wellbeing, his health. The situation of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is dire. In prison, they pressure them a lot.” The international community “needs to put full pressure on the government for the release of these political prisoners,” said Çerpanova. The EU, which recently signed a gas deal with Azerbaijan, also has a role. “Even if they hinted that they would not buy gas it would have an impact." Keeping up the heat: Austrian Member of European Parliament Lena Schilling, who met with Çerpanova and government critic Gubad Ibadoghlu during COP, said she’s outraged by Azerbaijan’s repression of journalists and critics. “We are going to keep the pressure on post-COP. The most important lever that the EU has is to stop doing dirty gas deals with autocratic oil regimes,” she said.
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