GCA High Level Event Opening at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Photo Credit: UN Climate Change and the International Energy Agency
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg took part in a protest last week as the United Nations Climate Change Conference opened, criticising the choice of host destination for the event.
Known as COP29, the event is being held over two weeks at Baku Stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan, from the 11 to 22 November 2025. Thunberg did not attend the conference, appearing instead at a protest about the event in Tbilisi in neighbouring Georgia, where she said the location for the event was ‘beyond absurd’. She also called the host country ‘an authoritarian petrostate’.
Thunberg and other activists argued that Azerbaijan does not deserve to host such an event, given its repressive policies. Baku is also a major oil producer.
According to a report in the Associated Press, Thunberg described Azerbaijan as “a repressive, occupying state, which has committed ethnic cleansing, and which is continuing to crack down on Azerbaijani civil society.”
In other reports, Thunberg said: “We can't give them any legitimacy in this situation, which is why we are standing here and saying no to greenwashing and no to the Azerbaijani regime.”
Last year’s climate summit, COP28, took place in Dubai.