DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The president of Azerbaijan, host country of this year’s U.N. climate change conference, defended fossil fuels while slamming the media and climate “hypocrisy” in a Tuesday speech at the event.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev described fossil fuels as a “gift of God,” slammed the “Western fake news” media for criticizing his country’s emissions and stated that countries like his “should not be blamed” for developing their reserves of natural resources and bringing them to the market.

The U.N. conference—also known as COP29, for short—has attracted tens of thousands of attendees to the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to discuss initiatives like so-called climate finance for developing countries, standards for carbon credit markets, and emissions reduction commitments.

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