Right-wing president Javier Milei withdrew Argentinaongoing delegation police29 UN climate summit Baku, Azerbaijan.

The decision, which was also approved by the officials in the delegation, means that the South American country will not participate in the conference from now on. UN climate negotiations It is expected to result in an agreement next week.

It is not yet clear whether Argentina will leave the Paris Agreement completely.

The delegation was ordered to stop the negotiations on Wednesday evening. Climate It was reported just hours after the high-profile leaders’ address portion of the summit concluded. Another delegation from the country, which was expected to come to Baku next week, was told to cancel its plans.

Argentina’s move adds to growing concerns about the influence of right-wing leaders on global climate commitments. Hopes for Cop29 were already faded Donald Trumphis return as US president and Fears it could pull the US back The Paris Agreement was abandoned once again.

Mr. Milei’s decision to withdraw from Cop29 aligns with his political stance and his intention to strengthen ties with the United States. Argentina’s president denies climate science and calls the climate crisis a “socialist lie.”

Following the withdrawal of the state delegation, Argentina will be represented at the Baku summit only by civil society and private sector groups; This means the country is left out of critical negotiations.

“More than 50 people from various sectors continue to actively participate in COP29 and support Argentina’s climate agenda in a challenging context.” Sustainable sin limits (SSF), an organization independent from the country, said the following in its statement.

Campaigners said Mr Milei’s decision was not in Argentina’s interests, especially since the main goal of the summit was to raise a fund to benefit countries in the Global South.

A spokesman for Greenpeace Andino, the South American branch of the international NGO, said: “Withdrawing from decision-making on an issue as sensitive and critical as financing is a missed opportunity for those who could benefit from the agreements reached in Baku.”

The SSF said Mr Milei’s decision “isolates Argentina from the international community” and “sends a negative signal to investors and companies”.

Some campaigners in Baku said they were “shocked” by the decision, but added it would not deter them from pushing the interests of the country and the wider region.

“We had changes of government during the COPs,” said climate campaigner Maria Azul Schvartzman. Independent in Baku. “But we have some kind of consistency in terms of our foreign policy on climate change.”

This time, he said, “was shocking because we believed we had some ground rules that were not going to change.”

Milei’s administration, he added, “shows over and over again with different issues that these ground rules do not exist and that the agreements that we thought we had as a society no longer exist.”

At the General Assembly in September, Mr. Milei criticized the UN for trying to “impose an ideological agenda” and removed Argentina from the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “We have come to the end of a cycle. The collectivism and moral superiority of the woke agenda have clashed with reality and they do not offer credible solutions to the world’s problems,” he said.

His administration has moved to alienate Argentina from trading partners led by leftist leaders such as Cuba and Venezuela. He fired his secretary of state, Diana Mondino, after she voted at the United Nations to lift the US embargo on Cuba.

Mr. Milei threatened to withdraw Argentina from the Paris agreement during the campaign, but did not follow through on that threat in his first year in office.

The decision to withdraw the delegation from Cop29 came immediately after Mr. Milei met with Mr. Trump. Mr Milei’s spokesman said the new US president had told his Argentinian counterpart that he was his “favourite president”.

He is expected to attend a meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and meet with the new president, according to CNN.

Argentina isn’t the only country skipping COP29. Papua New Guinea does not participate in the negotiations in Baku in protest and takes a stand on behalf of small island countries.

“We will no longer tolerate empty words and inaction while our people suffer the devastating consequences of climate change,” the country’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, said in a statement before the summit.

French ecology minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told the French senate on Wednesday that she would not participate in climate talks after Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev’s “unacceptable” attacks on her country in a speech on Tuesday.

Mr Aliyev accused France of “brutally” suppressing climate crisis concerns in its overseas territory.

While there is a French delegation at the summit, there is no senior minister in the country. Mr Macron had already decided to skip the summit and Ms Pannier-Runacher was the most senior delegate expected to be present.

“After meeting with the president and prime minister and reaching an agreement, I will not go to Baku next week,” he said.