Most of the opposition parties on Parliament Hill are ditching the high-profile annual United Nations conference on climate change this year, citing human rights concerns in the host country Azerbaijan little more than a year after the mass exodus of nearly 120,000 ethnic Armenians from their homes in the once-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“It’s the first time that no Green MPs will be attending intentionally, as the result of the choice of the host country,” said Kitchener-Centre Green Party MP Mike Morrice.