Around 60 nations are gathering in Santa Marta, Colombia, on Friday in what is described as the first global effort to plan a complete move away from fossil fuels, but the biggest power brokers in the energy system are notably absent. The countries attending account for roughly a fifth of global fossil fuel supply, including Colombia, Australia and Nigeria, while major powers including the US, China and India are not part of the talks. The meeting lands as the world warms rapidly, mainly from the use of coal, oil and gas, and as the machinery of annual UN COP climate meetings has slowed because decisions depend on the consent of all, giving large fossil producers an effective veto.
Who Holds the Levers
The Santa Marta meeting is taking place against a backdrop of institutional paralysis that has left fossil producers with outsized control. At COP30, held in Brazil last November, efforts to agree a roadmap away from fossil fuels failed because major oil producing nations would not agree to the plan. Delegates say the new meeting in Colombia is not meant to replace the COP process, but to complement it, a formulation that leaves the old structure intact even as it keeps stalling.
Scientists say the chance to keep warming to safer levels and avoid the most damaging impacts is slipping away, and that once warming passes 1.5C, dangerous impacts become more likely and harder to reverse. Prof Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told BBC News, "We are inevitably going to crash through the 1.5C limit within the next three to five years." He also said, "Breaking through 1.5C means we enter a far more dangerous world - with more frequent and intense droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves - and we are already approaching critical tipping points in major Earth systems."
The meeting is happening as events beyond the climate sphere are reshaping the debate over fossil energy. The US, the world's largest economy, has pushed back strongly in favour of coal, oil and gas under President Trump, while many other countries are said to be sitting on the fence about the scale and speed of their move away from fossil energy. Participants at the Santa Marta meeting believe the purpose of the gathering is to show countries that are hesitating about the transition that there is a critical mass moving in favour of renewables.
What the Bottom Pays For
The costs of delay are not abstract. The world is warming rapidly, and the article says the most damaging impacts become more likely and harder to reverse once warming passes 1.5C. Prof Rockström said the planet is already approaching critical tipping points in major Earth systems, while the climate talks that are supposed to coordinate action have been slowed by the consent rules that hand large fossil producers an effective veto.
Conflict in the Middle East has pushed up oil prices in recent weeks, highlighting the risks of dependence on fossil fuels and bringing questions of energy security back into focus. Former Irish President Mary Robinson, who is attending the meeting as a founding member of The Elders group of former world leaders, said, "This is exactly why this conference matters now." She also said, "The urgency is multiplied. What's happening has worsened the fossil fuel crisis we're already in."
The dramatic events in the Straits of Hormuz and elsewhere are affecting the choices people are making about energy consumption. Prof Rockström said, "I've just stepped off an advisory board meeting with Mercedes-Benz, and they expressed what's happening as a success - a sharp rise in demand for electric vehicles in Europe." He added, "People are recognising they want energy independence - they don't want to be in the hands of a volatile oil and gas market."
A Coalition, Not a Cure
Katerine Petersen from think tank E3G, who is attending the meeting, said, "Ultimately you don't need all countries to drive global progress. You need a starting point." She added, "Then you need a coalition that can expand over time and show how it can and will be useful. And I think that's what we're expecting to see from Santa Marta."
UK Climate Envoy Rachel Kyte, who is attending the gathering, said, "We are committed to working with other countries to support those wishing to drive forward their transitions to clean and secure energy." She also said, "We have the experience of our transition to share and the recent experience of driving to energy security with our clean power mission."
The organisers stress that the meeting is not an alternative to COP, but they see it as playing a key role in reviving that process. Some of the leaders of the Brazilian COP will be in attendance in Santa Marta, and the main conclusions agreed there will become part of Brazil's roadmap away from fossil fuels, which the country has said it will publish before COP31 in Turkey in November.
For now, the picture is familiar: a world in crisis, a conference meant to signal movement, and a global system where the biggest fossil fuel powers can still stand aside while everyone else tries to negotiate around them. The meeting in Santa Marta is being sold as a starting point, but the article makes clear that the old climate apparatus remains hostage to the same hierarchy that has already slowed action and protected the fossil fuel order.