Climate risk country profile: Azerbaijan

This profile is intended to serve as public goods to facilitate upstream country diagnostics, policy dialogue, and strategic planning by providing comprehensive overviews of trends and projected changes in key climate parameters, sector-specific implications, relevant policies and programs, adaptation priorities and opportunities for further actions. Azerbaijan is the largest of the three countries of the southern Caucasus by area, lying at the boundaries of Europe and Asia. Azerbaijan has signed and ratified the Paris Climate Agreement. In its Nationally Determined Contributions (2017), the country has outlined climate change mitigation actions in its energy, oil and gas, residential and commercial, transport, agricultural, and waste sectors. Azerbaijan’s NDC is currently under review and an updated NDC is expected to be released by the end of 2021.

This climate risk profile provides key messages on the future of Azerbaijan, including: 

• Temperatures in Azerbaijan are projected to rise at a faster rate than the global average, with potential warming of 4.7°C by the 2090s over the 1986–2005 baseline, under the highest emissions pathway (RCP8.5).
• There is a risk that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by those least able to adapt. 
• Poorer communities are often dependent on poor quality water infrastructure, lack diversified income sources and assets, and will be least able to adapt their livelihoods to disaster risks such as drought and extreme heat