The president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, which is hosting COP29, the UN climate summit, has defended oil and gas extraction, saying it is a “gift from God.”

At the same time, he criticized what he called “Western fake news” about the country’s emissions and said nations “should not be blamed” for having fossil fuel reserves.

Aliyev said the country’s share of global gas emissions was “only 0.1 percent.”

“Oil, natural gas, wind, sun, gold, silver, copper, all are natural resources and countries should not be blamed for having them and should not be blamed for bringing these resources to the market because the market needs them,” he justified.

Azerbaijan, as the BBC notes, plans to expand gas production by up to 30% over the next decade.

Shortly afterward, UN chief Anthony Guterres stressed that the “clean energy revolution” has arrived and that no government can stop it.

Some observers had expressed concerns about the climate conference being held in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s minister of ecology and natural resources – a former oil sector executive with a 26-year tenure at Azerbaijan’s state oil and gas company Socar – is the conference chairman.