A “Heads of Delegation Meeting” was held in the city of Shamakhi, Azerbaijan, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30.

26 July 2025

A “Heads of Delegation Meeting” was held in the city of Shamakhi, Azerbaijan, ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP30.

Jointly organized by the COP29 and upcoming COP30 Presidencies and attended by senior negotiators, the meeting aimed to contribute to dialogue and trust-building in order to ensure the success of COP30, which will be held in Belém, Brazil, and to accelerate climate action.

Designed to help translate the decisions adopted at COP29 into concrete action in the lead-up to COP30 and to foster convergence among parties on other key issues to be addressed at COP30, the meeting was attended on behalf of Türkiye by Deputy Minister of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change and Chief Climate Negotiator Fatma Varank, together with Prof. Halil Hasar, Director of Climate Change.

With thematic “Climate Labs” held under the headings “Baku to Belém Roadmap,” “Adaptation,” “Mitigation,” “Global Stocktake,” “Just Transition,” and “Technology and Implementation Programme,” the meeting opened with addresses by COP29 President Mukhtar Babayev and UNFCCC Senior Director Daniele Violetti.

Representing Türkiye in the Climate Labs, Director of Climate Change Hasar moderated the “Global Stocktake Lab” and shared his views following the working sessions. In his remarks, Hasar noted that the meeting had strengthened mutual understanding among countries by providing a sincere and solution-oriented platform for dialogue ahead of the formal negotiations at COP30, and that it had made a significant contribution to preparatory efforts for the conference.

Indicating that divergences of opinions persisted in discussions on the scope and purpose of the “UAE Dialogue” established under the Global Stocktake and that considerable time had been lost in launching the dialogue, Hasar emphasized that its scope should be shaped in particular around climate finance and funding gaps. He also noted that there was a proposal to bring the Global Stocktake’s other outputs, together with overall progress and practical gaps, into the process.

Pointing out that further consultations were needed in order to reach consensus on the issues discussed, Hasar added that how the outputs of the “UAE Dialogue” would be structured also stood out as one of the key matters still to be resolved.