“Last year Azerbaijan hosted COP29 and achieved historic decisions. Throughout this process, Azerbaijan took its role very seriously and acted as an honest broker, gained trust among all the stakeholders and brought parties closer, being a bridge between the developed world and the Global South. Since becoming COP29’s Climate High-Level Champion, I’ve had the privilege of meeting all kinds of people from every corner of the world, and I’ve seen how many are now living with the consequences of climate disruption,” said Nigar Arpadarai, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP29 Azerbaijan, as she addressed the opening ceremony of BCAW2025.

“They are the same realities faced here in Azerbaijan and across the region. In farmers struggling with drought, in water stress across the Kura-Aras basin, and in the retreat of the Caspian Sea which, as we all know, is reshaping coastlines, threatening fisheries and altering ecosystems that communities depend on.

All of this is personal. Because in the end, what is climate, if not the conditions that make life possible? The air that fills our lungs. The water that makes everything grow. The jobs that sustain families and communities. The beauty of a place that feels like home.

That’s why we are here. To act on climate is to protect the lives people are building now, and the futures they hope to secure.

The Climate Change agenda is one of the largest efforts by humanity to design its own fate. And to do it through cooperation and adoption of behavior standards that help us clean up and sustain our environment.

The Climate Change Agenda is obviously at the crossroads. Climate agenda should come with technological breakthroughs. We must achieve goals of Climate Agenda via efficiency and progress as opposed to restrictions and prohibitions,” the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP29 added.