Azerbaijan's ruling Aliyev family and its elite network will greatly benefit from the country's hosting of the COP29 environmental conference this month, according to an investigation by the anti-corruption media site OCCRP.  

The conference, which will bring over 5,000 people to Baku's luxurious Sea Breeze Resort on the Caspian Sea, is the first United Nations climate conference to be held in a former Soviet republic. Sea Breeze resort is owned by a former son-in-law of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Emin Agalov obtained a $5.2mn contract to house COP29 guests without a competitive bidding process. Agalov says he was given a loan to grow the resort for conference attendees, yet official documents show it as a straight contract, OCCRP says. 

Nearly all of Azerbaijan's COP29 partner companies – almost all connected to the Aliyev family – get visibility and sponsorship rights in a "Green Zone" exhibition area meant to foster communication among delegates, business leaders and journalists. These partners include Azersun Holding, a well-known local food manufacturer, and PASHA Holding, owned by the daughters of President Aliyev. Other partners include SOCAR Green, a division of Azerbaijan's state oil corporation SOCAR, which has members on the COP29 organising committee and is crucial for the national economy. Anti-corruption NGO Transparency International has expressed worries that given SOCAR's close ties to the Azerbaijani government and its involvement in oil production, its posture would result in a conflict of interest.

Further issues are raised by the official COP29 partners list, which includes Bank ABB and Silk Way Airlines. Originally known as the International Bank of Azerbaijan, ABB was linked to the $2.9bn "Azerbaijani Laundromat" money-laundering affair. Another well-known partner, Silk Way Airlines, has a sibling business linking the first family. Other Azerbaijani businesses, such as textiles company GILTEX, were formerly linked to Gilan Holding, a conglomerate in which the Aliyev daughters had a majority share.

Critics of COP29 contend that the meeting could provide a stage for Azerbaijan's governing elite to showcase their companies under cover of environmental and sustainability projects. This tendency shows a larger move toward business collaborations inside COP events, which, according to analysts like Heike Schroeder from the University of East Anglia, are recent initiatives that profit from the global awareness of the event. 

The OCCRP research presents COP29 as a scene where corporate and political power meet, with Azerbaijan's governing elite standing to gain not only monetarily but also in terms of reputation. Critics of Azerbaijan's climate-conscious hosting point out that the president's family and network could be the actual beneficiaries, therefore undermining the integrity and influence of COP29's environmental agenda.

Transparency International and the Anti-Corruption Data Collective expressed worries in their new paper, "COP Co-Opted," about COP's susceptibility to host country influence, especially in cases when the host has economic interests in fossil fuels. The groups contend that without rules for COP alliances, authoritarian governments can use the conference to greenwash their image and gain monetarily without regard for others. Transparency International's Brice Böhmer observed that corrupt governments could "use the COP to green- and whitewash their records and directly benefit from the COP."

Advocacy organisations have criticised the choice to host COP29 in Azerbaijan, a big oil and gas producer with a poor human rights record. Freedom House ranks Azerbaijan as the most autocratic state ever to host a COP conference. Six reporters from the independent news site Abzas Media, who first covered the no-bid contract given to Agalarov's Sea Breeze Resort, were imprisoned as the regime prepared for the event by taking a heavy-handed attitude to domestic opposition.