During three decades of negotiations at the UN, it has been practically impossible to bring the reality of what is happening to the planet into the agreements that come out of the climate summits: humans are overheating it to dangerous levels with the continued burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal). Transferring this scientific evidence into the summit texts has been impossible due to the firm veto of the main producing countries against any mention of fuels. “We have been treating the symptoms and have never said that fuels are the main cause of this cancer and that is what we have to attack,” summarized Juan Carlos Monterrey, Panama’s special envoy for Climate Change.
“For the first time in 34 years, a conversation that the world was owed is taking place,” Monterrey said referring to the Conference on the Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels, which concluded this Wednesday in the Colombian city of Santa Marta. This event, attended by representatives of 57 countries — which account for 30% of the world’s GDP and fuel consumption — has launched a coalition aimed at promoting the energy transition and sharing initiatives on how to carry it out.
“Beyond fossil fuels, there is indeed a possible world,” emphasized Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez at the closing of the event. She also defended that in Santa Marta it was possible to “lift the taboos,” referring to the vetoes on mentions of fossil fuels. The meeting was described as “a safe space for dialogue” by the Dutch Climate Minister, Stientje Van Veldhoven. Colombia and the Netherlands co-organized the first conference of this kind, which brought together a “coalition of the willing, a coalition of doers,” in Van Veldhoven’s words.
At the meeting, which included a dozen ministers as well as scientists and civil society representatives, experiences and concerns about this “inevitable” transition were shared, in the words of Tina Stege, special envoy for Climate Change of the Marshall Islands. “It is the only sensible path for the security and protection of all,” she added.
This conference was born with the intention of continuity, and Tuvalu and Ireland will co-organize the next edition, which will be held in the small Pacific island state in 2027. But the conference also begins with tremendous uncertainties about how it will fit into the UN climate summit system and the Paris Agreement, a multilateral process that the half-century of countries participating in this event continue to defend despite the “frustration” of recent summits, as many attendees acknowledged in the corridors of the convention center in the Caribbean city that hosted the meeting.
The conference was a cross-cutting meeting in which fuel-producing countries (such as Colombia, Brazil, Norway, and Canada) and predominantly consuming nations (such as Spain, Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom) shared their proposals and concerns, but no final agreement or single path to follow was closed.
For example, the possibility of launching a treaty on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels was discussed; or how to end public subsidies received by oil and coal; or how nations with fewer resources need instruments to reduce their external debt in the context of the transition; or how producing countries can face the loss of tax revenues linked to the fossil sector… More than 600 contributions have been collected by the co-organizers of this event. As a result of this conference, several working groups will be created on issues such as emissions from the fuel production sector, subsidies, taxation, or the necessary reforms of the financial system. Additionally, a scientific panel has been created to help countries on the path to abandoning coal, oil, and coal.
“These conversations are really healthy and useful,” acknowledged Rachel Kyte, the UK’s special envoy for climate change. “This is not a conversation we can easily have in the UN hallways or at the COPs,” she added, referring to the climate summits.
Frustration
The last of those UN summits was held in November in the Brazilian city of Belém. And in a way, it was a turning point, because the veto of the petro-states again made mentions of fossil fuels impossible. Most attendees at Santa Marta experienced that frustration five months ago.
European Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra was one of the participants in this conference who perhaps spoke about this in the most blunt way: “The reality, unfortunately, is that, and we saw it very clearly at the last COP, the only thing we can achieve there is the lowest common denominator.” The root of the problem lies in the way decisions are made at the COP, by consensus, which grants veto power to any of the 200 participating nations. “It is one of the curses of multilateralism,” Hoekstra admitted. For this reason, he believed it would be necessary to review how the COPs operate.
But Hoekstra also acknowledged that turning the COPs into something “completely new” will not be an easy task, so “part of the future of international climate diplomacy” will be with “plurilateral initiatives” like the conference held in Santa Marta. The goal, as the commissioner elaborated, is to forge a “coalition” and have more countries join it.
No one misses that the world’s main emitter, China, is absent here, which remains involved in the climate summits, unlike the United States, the second largest global polluter. “China would be welcome and it would be important for it to be present,” Kyte admitted.
Defense of multilateralism
Despite the feeling of frustration with the COPs shared by most attendees at Santa Marta, the countries also wanted to defend multilateralism against attacks from the far-right, led by the Trump Administration. “It is indispensable to address a global crisis that transcends borders,” states the joint position of the 14 European countries that participated in Santa Marta, including the four major EU economies: Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The statement argues that Santa Marta should be a boost for the UN climate summits as well as represent “a strong signal to companies, financial institutions, and multilateral development banks to invest in the energy transition.”
“The launch of this conference is already a success in itself,” valued Third Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, who emphasized that the goal is for the discussions of this initiative to serve “as a catalyst” to “arrive at the next COP with real momentum.”
This conference was conceived in a moment of frustration and has been held in another in which the world economy’s dependence on fossil fuels is being questioned beyond environmental or competitiveness reasons (the costs of renewables and electric cars continue to fall). With the war in the Middle East, and the price and supply crisis linked to the conflict, the sense of insecurity generated by addiction to oil and gas has increased.
“Dependence on fossil fuels generates vulnerability, and moving away from them can protect the economy and the population from the domino effects of conflict, instability, and volatility. The transition from fossil fuels reduces vulnerabilities,” the text signed by the European countries points out as the closing of this event. “The harsh reality is that Europe is being held hostage by something it cannot control,” admitted the Climate Commissioner. “The lessons learned from fossil fuel-driven crises in recent years force us to accelerate their phase-out,” Aagesen concluded.
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