The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference has become for the environment what the Olympics and FIFA World Cup are to sports and Eurovision is to pop music: It is a huge party to showcase and sometimes whitewash the host country.

This year, Azerbaijan will host the 29th Climate Change Conference, also known as COP29 — an irony given both Azerbaijan’s petroleum-based economy and the country’s repression of its own environmental activists upset at pollution in the Caspian Sea.