COP29 Security: Potential for Unrest and Terrorism

The 29^th UN conference on climate change, or COP29, will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan, between 11 and 22 November 2024. The climate change conferences take place within the broader diplomatic and legal frameworks established by various climate agreements, including the 2015 Paris agreement, aimed at favouring international state-level cooperation to reduce the speed and severity of global warming. Previous COP conferences, like other state and supernational-level efforts to combat climate change, have been criticised by global environmental activists, and activist groups have previously conducted direct action and protests to coincide with COP and other summits. 

Moreover, this year, the threats linked to the conference are likely to be exacerbated by other international developments. Activist groups of different ideological persuasions have increasingly collaborated to jointly cause larger disruptions, and there is a growing interplay and communication between various activist movements. This report covers the likely threats linked with the COP29 event, looking not only at Azerbaijan itself, but also at possible international trends for protests and civil unrest. 

Azerbaijan won its bid to host COP29 in 2023. The country is a signatory to numerous international treaties on climate protection. However, it lacks an established civil society network comparable to that found in Western states. In 2014, Azerbaijan’s government passed a restrictive non-governmental organisation (NGO) law which limited the ability of NGOs to obtain foreign funds, while simultaneously increasing the volume of government-dedicated resources that local NGO could request. This has created a vertical system of dependencies, whereby local NGOs are disincentivised from pursuing research or activities that authorities deem to be counterproductive to their interests, leading to NGOs generally self-censoring their activities. The growth of climate awareness in Azerbaijan is therefore largely state-led, with local NGOs and civil society activists reacting to positive government signals.  

The government’s crackdown on forms of dissent, as well as the dependent and partly subservient operations of local NGOs, make it unlikely that the COP29 proceedings will be affected by large-scale, organised forms of civil unrest in Baku. A realistic possibility, however, remains of local and international activist groups carrying out symbolic demonstrations or targeted disruptions. As there is significant information-sharing between environmentalist groups at an international scale, there is a remote possibility that direct action could involve targeted sabotage, imitating the recent case in France, targeting local rail and metro facilities.  

Alternatively, protesters may stage symbolic actions in high-visibility parts of Baku, including in the area outside of the conference venue – the Baku Olympic Stadium complex. Such protests may be similar to those which occurred in Dubai on the occasion of COP28 in 2023. In that case, activists displayed photos of political prisoners in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, and marched to call for a ceasefire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. These protests took place in the UN’s “blue zone” – likely to avoid harsher policing in UAE-administered areas – and were mostly carried out by foreign attendees at the conference, meaning that turnout was overall small. 

Protests in Baku may be driven by multiple overlapping issues. Outside of environmentalist causes, protesters are likely to seek to highlight the domestic human rights violations and “greenwashing” carried out by the Azeri government before COP29, including the arbitrary detention of dozens of local journalists and activists. Likewise, it is a realistic possibility that international activists will use the conference as an opportunity to protest against the large-scale displacement of ethnic Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region since 2023. 

The terrorism risk level in Azerbaijan is LOW, and there have been no recent major terrorist attacks in Baku. Nevertheless, it is likely that Azerbaijan remains a possible target for regional violent extremist organisations (VEOs), and especially Sunni Islamist groups. Multiple factors contribute to this risk. These include: the country’s majority Shia population, the continuing presence of radical grassroots religious movements, the return of foreign fighters who joined the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, the growing global threat of online-driven self-radicalisation, and the relative permeability of the Azeri-Russian border. 

This last factor is particularly relevant, as there are multiple militant VEOs currently operating in the Russian Caucasus, and these likely maintain some presence across the border, in northern regions of Azerbaijan. In late August, local media reported that a local public official was killed by unspecified “Salafis” in the Qusar district of north Azerbaijan. Authorities responded by increasing counterterrorism operations in the area, leading to clashes with local groups.

On 19 September, reports emerged of multiple Azeri casualties during one of these engagements, dated to five days prior. The IS-affiliate an-Naba magazine claimed that IS was responsible for the attack on Azeri forces. If these claims are true, then it is highly likely that the militants were either members of or affiliated with Islamic State – Caucasus Province (ISCP), the IS branch that was responsible for the 23 June attacks in Derbent and Makhchkala, Dagestan.  

A confirmed organised IS presence in Azerbaijan would have important implications for the entire country. The group’s strategy aims at using high-visibility attacks as tools to both destabilise its target countries and drive recruitment. IS’s growing footprint in Afghanistan has coincided with large-scale attacks abroad – including, most notably, the Crocus City Hall attack in March 2024. In Azerbaijan, IS could seek to target places of worship and state buildings, as well as high-profile events, including COP29.  

There is also a possibility of COP29-related unrest taking place in other countries. International participation and UN-backed messaging make every COP event globally visible. Past COPs have resulted in protests in non-host countries both before and during the event. For instance, in 2023, protesters caused disruptions in European cities, including Paris and Berlin, in opposition to the UAE’s hosting of the event due to the country’s record of human rights violations and continued use of fossil fuels.  

An ongoing trend, which is likely to be especially important in Western Europe, is that of groups devoted to different causes collaborating to cause disruptions on particularly significant occasions. The most notable recent case of such inter-group collaboration is that of the French Olympics of July and August 2024. Multiple groups and activists from pro-Palestine, anarchist, left-wing, environmentalist, and other activist tendencies staged often simultaneous protests and disruptions in Paris and other French host cities under the broader pretext of boycotting the Games. It is likely that only the extreme “lockdown” of the centre of the Paris’ urban area prevented the “anti-Jeux” movement from causing severe disruptions to the Olympic Games. 

Moreover, significant information-sharing and “copycat” practices are present among ideologically aligned or adjacent groups. The main “victory” of the “anti-Jeux” movement was the widespread sabotage of the French public rail network on the eve of the opening ceremony, which caused significant delays for commuters trying to reach or leave Paris. The success of the initial sabotage not only resulted in further – mostly botched – attempts at disrupting French railway lines during the Olympics, but also had spillover effects abroad. In mid-August, anarchist groups in Sweden echoed the French case by launching a campaign – known as “train to nowhere” – calling for sabotage of train infrastructure and other forms of direct action across Europe. 

While not as high-visibility as the Olympics, COP29 is still likely to draw significant international attention and is therefore at a high likelihood of causing spillover unrest in “hotspot” countries. These especially include European countries where past comparable protests have occurred, including Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, and the UK.

In some of these countries, the likelihood of protests is likely to be further increased by the political relevance of the opening date of COP29. The date of 11 November, the anniversary of the armistice of the First World War, is particularly politically relevant in Western Europe – and is both observed as a public holiday in multiple countries and as a day on which broader peace-related initiatives and commemorations are held (as, for instance, the yearly Paris Peace Forum).

On 11 November 2023, protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict occurred in London, resulting in some limited clashes between pro-Palestine protesters and far-right groups. It is almost certain that – unless a ceasefire deal is reached – Gaza-related protests will occur in large Western European cities to coincide with Armistice Day, and there is a high likelihood that environmentalist groups will call for joint demonstrations to coincide with the beginning of COP29.