Exporting Gas, Exporting Emissions: The Externalization of Climate Costs through the Southern Gas Corridor

Abstract
This article examines the structural tension between Azerbaijan's international climate commitments and its expanding role as a major natural gas exporter to Europe. Since hosting COP29 in 2024, Azerbaijan has positioned itself as an active participant in global environmental governance while simultaneously accelerating hydrocarbon production, developing new gas fields (including Absheron Phase II, Babek, and non-associated gas at ACG), and deepening its strategic energy partnership with the EU through the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) and Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Drawing on the concept of "exported emissions," the article argues that while European states may reduce territorial emissions by substituting Azerbaijani gas for more carbon-intensive fuels, a substantial share of the associated methane emissions, generated during extraction, processing, compression, and transmission, remains externalized to Azerbaijan and other points along the supply chain.
The analysis assesses whether existing environmental, health and safety, and human rights safeguards imposed by EU legislation, EBRD, EIB, IFC, OECD, and Equator Principles standards, as well as the new EU Methane Regulation (2024/1787), are adequate to address this challenge. It finds that although TAP operates under one of the most extensive formal governance frameworks applied to energy infrastructure, effective implementation depends heavily on independent monitoring, transparency, and civic space, all of which are significantly constrained in Azerbaijan and, to varying degrees, in Georgia and Turkiye. Restrictions on civil society, journalists, and human rights defenders limit the ability of independent actors to verify compliance, creating a gap between formal regulatory commitments and actual environmental and social outcomes.
The article concludes that Azerbaijan's declining performance in the World Economic Forum's 2026 Energy Transition Index, driven by weaknesses in institutional and regulatory "Transition Readiness" rather than technical system performance, illustrates a broader dilemma facing hydrocarbon-exporting states: the credibility of climate commitments ultimately hinges not only on renewable energy targets, but on methane governance, transparency, and protection of the civic space needed to hold gas export infrastructure accountable throughout its operational lifecycle.

Keywords: Azerbaijan; Southern Gas Corridor; Trans Adriatic Pipeline; European energy security; SOCAR;exported/embodied emissions; methane emissions; energy transition; COP29; civic space; resource governance; human rights and environmental accountability

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