Domain wars: Climate change edition

Move over the JioHotstar domain controversy. This is the domain wars story you need to hear.

It’s story time.

It’s the year 2024. COP 29 is happening in Azerbaijan. So in spirit of keeping up with the digital world the Azerbaijan government wanted to buy the domain “COP29.com”

(Also read: What is COP? An explainer)

Here enters the hero of our story - kitchenware company from Delhi - COP29 that makes copper bottles. They owned the domain 'COP29.com'. (It’s legit - I looked and found their stuff on Amazon! )

Now one would have expected this to be a regular transaction. They could have haggled over the price and made a neat profit for nothing.

But here comes the twist. The company COP29 chose to not sell the domain to Azerbaijan and instead sold it to a climate campaign group 'Global witness'. Global witness used the domain to set up a page with #PaybackTime that calls for fossil fuel companies to pay up for the destruction they have caused.

All of this was possible because apparently the marketing manager of 'COP29' - the kitchenware brand is climate conscious! He spoke about the pollution in Delhi and said “Its affecting my health, my organs, my thinking” (As reported in this FT article)

So now everyone who was typing ‘cop29.com’ was ending up at this activist page! Obviously, Azerbaijan is not happy about this. They have tried blocking this domain in Azerbaijan, so no one at COP can see it. But it’s accessible in India (and everywhere else outside Azerbaijan I guess).

Climate activists have called out for years how the presence of fossil fuel groups in COP undermines the global effort for climate action. So to use the COP29 domain as a page to call this out feels like poetic justice!

Also love this story as it’s a great example of how individual action matters and how we all wield so much power in the roles we play.