SANTA MARTA, Colombia — As the Caribbean sun sets, lights blaze at the massive port that ships millions of tons of Colombia’s coal to global markets. Colombia is a major coal, oil and gas producer, yet in recent years its government has been diversifying the economy and moving away from fossil fuels — the chief driver of human-caused climate change. It is not alone.
This week Colombia and the Netherlands — the birthplace of oil giant Shell — are co-hosting the “Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” conference in Santa Marta, near the coal-export port. More than 50 countries are meeting for two days of high-level talks focused on practical ways to phase out oil, gas and coal.
“Let this conference be the moment when ambition becomes action,” Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez Torres said at the opening plenary. “Let’s make this a turning point in history.”
The talks occur against a warming planet and an energy crunch tied to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, which has driven up oil and gas prices and caused shortages. International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol has called it “the mother of all energy crises.” Those shortages are prompting some countries to speed their shift away from fossil fuels, says Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister for climate change. His island nation, threatened by rising seas and dependent on fossil-fuel imports, is expanding solar projects and recently accelerated plans to electrify government vehicles. “The decision on EVs was directly stimulated by the crisis,” Regenvanu told NPR.
Worldwide, affordable Chinese electric vehicles are spreading, and large solar and wind developments — often paired with battery storage — are increasingly cost-competitive with natural gas and coal, according to financial analysts at Lazard. “Governments are not doing [the energy transition] necessarily for climate reasons,” Leo Roberts of the climate nonprofit E3G said. “They’re doing it because it is cheaper and more effective to move your economy away from fossil fuels — and it’s safer and more secure.”
Not all major fossil fuel powers are participating. The U.S., the world’s largest oil and gas producer and top oil consumer, is not at the conference. The State Department, which has historically sent delegates to international climate talks, said in an email that “moving away from reliable, affordable, and secure energy to rely on intermittent and costly energy sources is destructive, and the president has been clear that the United States will not participate in the bogus climate agenda.” China, the world’s largest coal consumer, is also absent.
Still, some of the biggest producers are represented, including Australia, Mexico and Nigeria, Daniela Durán, head of international affairs at Colombia’s Ministry of Environment, noted. Durán said the event is open to nonparticipants when they’re ready and emphasized that Santa Marta is “a space for those who are ready to move forward,” not a forum for re-litigating whether to transition away from fossil fuels.
New ways forward
Conference discussions include shifting subsidies from fossil fuels such as gasoline and diesel toward renewables and batteries, and planning new employment pathways for millions who work in fossil fuel sectors — for example, coal miners near Santa Marta. The gathering was devised in part out of frustration with annual U.N. climate conferences, or COPs. While COP28 in Dubai in 2023 saw countries agree to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, governments have not agreed on how to do it. In U.N. negotiations, every country must accept the exact wording, and fossil-fuel-producing states like Saudi Arabia have resisted explicit fossil fuel language.
At COP30 in Brazil last November, about 80 countries pushed for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, but talks ended without one. Colombia and the Netherlands subsequently announced the Santa Marta conference to focus explicitly on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Durán said the new forum is meant to complement the COP process by allowing candid discussion of fossil fuels — a subject she said is difficult to address inside the U.N. climate negotiations.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries have made emissions-cut pledges, but scientists say those commitments fall far short of what’s needed. A recent U.N. report found current pledges would cut emissions by only about 12% by 2035; scientists say cuts of roughly half are required by that year to keep warming near 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Former Irish President Mary Robinson called Santa Marta “a coalition of the doers” and urged rapid action. “We have a unique opportunity to shift and move rapidly in a different direction,” she told NPR. “And we cannot move rapidly enough.”
Next steps
Delegates in Santa Marta are also debating whether to pursue a legally binding treaty committing countries to specific actions, an idea advocated by Tzeporah Berman of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. Some attendees favor binding commitments; others prefer nonbinding approaches. “Some countries want to continue in a way that’s nonbinding, after thirty COPs,” Andrés Gómez, Latin America coordinator for the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, said with a laugh.
Durán said organizers hope this conference will lead to future meetings on fossil-fuel transition; experts expect the next one could be hosted by Tuvalu.
Potsdam Institute director Johan Rockström told the opening plenary that the world will “inevitably” breach the 1.5°C limit within the coming decade, but added that coming back from an overshoot remains scientifically possible if transitions away from fossil fuels accelerate. “As a scientist, I have never felt so encouraged,” he said. “You are the light in a tunnel of darkness.”