SANTA MARTA, Colombia — As the Caribbean sun sets, the lights of a vast coal-export port near this coastal city blaze into the night, a daily reminder that Colombia remains a major producer and exporter of coal, oil and gas. Yet the country is also trying to diversify its economy and steer away from fossil fuels, the principal driver of human-caused climate change. Santa Marta has become the stage for that effort.
This week Colombia and the Netherlands are co-hosting the “Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” conference in Santa Marta, a two-day gathering of more than 50 countries focused on practical steps to phase out oil, gas and coal. The Netherlands is a symbolic partner: it is the birthplace of oil giant Shell and a long-time energy player.
“Let this conference be the moment when ambition becomes action,” Colombia’s environment minister, Irene Vélez Torres, said during the opening plenary. “Let’s make this a turning point in history.”
The talks come amid a warming planet and a global energy crunch tied to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, which has pushed up oil and gas prices and created shortages. International Energy Agency Director Fatih Birol has called the situation “the mother of all energy crises.” Those market pressures are accelerating some countries’ moves away from fossil fuels, delegates said.
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s minister for climate change, told the conference that rising energy prices and the vulnerability of his island nation to sea-level rise have sped renewable adoption and electrification. Vanuatu has expanded solar projects and fast-tracked plans to electrify government vehicles; “The decision on EVs was directly stimulated by the crisis,” he said in an interview.
Economic drivers are as important as climate concerns. Affordable Chinese electric vehicles are proliferating worldwide, and large-scale solar and wind developments paired with battery storage are increasingly cost-competitive with gas and coal, analysts at Lazard have found. “Governments are not doing [the energy transition] necessarily for climate reasons,” said Leo Roberts of the climate group E3G. “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 every major fossil-fuel power is at the table. The United States, the world’s largest oil and gas producer and top oil consumer, did not send a delegation. The State Department, which has historically attended international climate talks, said by 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, several big producers are participating, including Australia, Mexico and Nigeria, Daniela Durán, head of international affairs at Colombia’s Ministry of Environment, pointed out. Durán emphasized that Santa Marta is intended as “a space for those who are ready to move forward,” not a place to re-litigate whether a transition is necessary.
Concrete avenues under discussion include shifting subsidies away from gasoline and diesel toward renewables and batteries, and planning retraining and new employment pathways for millions who currently work in fossil-fuel industries — for example, the coal miners who live near the Santa Marta port.
The conference was partly born of frustration with annual U.N. climate summits, or COPs. Although COP28 in Dubai in 2023 yielded language calling for transitions away from fossil fuels in energy systems, governments have not agreed on detailed roadmaps. In U.N. negotiations every country must accept final text, and fossil-fuel–producing states have resisted explicit fossil-fuel phaseout wording. At COP30 in Brazil last November, about 80 countries pushed for a clear roadmap but talks ended without one; Colombia and the Netherlands then announced Santa Marta as a forum to address the subject more directly.
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries have submitted emissions-cut pledges, but scientists say current commitments fall far short of what’s needed. A recent U.N. analysis found that pledged actions would cut emissions by only about 12% by 2035, while scientists estimate reductions on the order of half are needed by that year to keep warming close to 1.5°C.
Former Irish President Mary Robinson described Santa Marta as “a coalition of the doers” and urged rapid movement. “We have a unique opportunity to shift and move rapidly in a different direction,” she told NPR. “And we cannot move rapidly enough.”
Delegates are also debating whether the movement should culminate in a legally binding treaty that would commit countries to specific actions, an idea championed by Tzeporah Berman of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. Views differ: some favor binding commitments while others prefer voluntary arrangements. “Some countries want to continue in a way that’s nonbinding, after thirty COPs,” Andrés Gómez, the initiative’s Latin America coordinator, said wryly.
Organizers hope Santa Marta will not be a one-off event. Durán said the conference aims to spawn future meetings on fossil-fuel transitions; experts have suggested Tuvalu could host the next gathering.
Potsdam Institute director Johan Rockström warned at the opening that the world will “inevitably” breach the 1.5°C limit within the coming decade, but he also said that an overshoot could still be reversed if transitions away from fossil fuels accelerate rapidly. “As a scientist, I have never felt so encouraged,” he told delegates. “You are the light in a tunnel of darkness.”
Whether Santa Marta becomes a turning point will depend on whether participating countries translate talk into coordinated policy shifts — from subsidy reform to worker retraining, investment in renewables and clear timetables for winding down coal, oil and gas production. For a city whose nights are lit by coal exports, the conference is a test of whether a practical and politically plausible path away from fossil fuels can be built and scaled globally.