As reported earlier, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP21) is taking place in Paris.

Azerbaijan’s First Lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva as well as the foundation’s Vice-president, founder and head of IDEA Public Union Leyla Aliyeva participated in the conference on December 4th.

The first lady Mehriban Aliyeva and Leyla Aliyeva were welcomed by the COP21 Secretary General Pierre-Henri Guignard.

The Vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder and head of IDEA Public Union Leyla Aliyeva addressed an event organized in the framework of COP21 entitled “Innovative decision making tools for low-carbon development and climate resilience in Europe and Central Asia” organized by the Regional Environment Center.

 The event was dedicated to the subject of ensuring sustainable development in the countries of the Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia as well as the measures aimed at environmental protection. In her speech, Leyla Aliyeva, who had been invited to the event as a special guest, shared her views on the topic and spoke of the relevant experience of IDEA Public Union.

 Leyla Aliyeva highlighted global environmental problems, and proposed ways to address them. She stated that it was the moral responsibility of the international community towards the future generations to create conditions for the conservation and development of ecosystems and rare and endangered species of flora and fauna. She noted that it was not beyond our capacity to reach these goals, but, on the contrary, everything was in our own hands, as environmental degradation was mainly caused by harmful human activities.

 Leyla Aliyeva also noted that environmental threats had no borders and that no country was safe from these threats, hence, coordinated action of the global community was crucial.

 She drew the audience’s attention to Azerbaijan’s favorable geographical location, nature, rich flora and fauna and climate. In this regard, actions taken towards environmental and nature protection as well as the achieved improvements were mentioned in the speech.  The head of IDEA Public Union also spoke of the activities of her organization, including those related to solving ecological problems in the country and the region, protecting biodiversity, promoting sustainable development, encouraging humane treatment of animals, educating the youth on the environment, and other activities.

The speech enjoyed wide interest of the audience. After the speech, Leyla Aliyeva responded to questions from the audience related to Azerbaijan and the activities of IDEA.