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'Only the Beginning': Santa Marta Summit Heralded as New Dawn in Fight to End Fossil Fuel Era
“Amid a tense geopolitical context and worsening climate extremes, Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words," said a senior climate adviser at Greenpeace.
Apr 30, 2026
Environmental activists are hopeful after a six-day climate summit in Colombia resulted in a coalition of more than 50 countries agreeing to start developing plans to move away from planet-heating fossil fuels. But they say action must now follow talk.
In marked contrast to the annual United Nations climate summits, which have been routinely overrun by oil and gas industry lobbyists and concluded with agreements that largely ignore the imperative to divest from fossil fuels, Shiva Gounden, the head of Greenpeace's delegation this week in Santa Marta, said the conference that concluded Wednesday "was a breath of fresh air, a real sign that the wind is finally shifting."
The 59 nations that attended the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels did not ultimately end with a binding agreement to transition away from fossil fuels within a specific timeframe, which activists say is urgently necessary as global heating rapidly approaches 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.
Many of the world's biggest polluters—including the United States, China, and India, as well as petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates—were also absent.
However, the summit did end with attendees, nearly half of whom are fossil fuel producers and who represent more than half of global gross domestic product, agreeing to form tangible "frameworks" for how they plan to transition away from a fossil-fueled model of capitalism that Colombian President Gustavo Petro decried as "suicidal."
Perhaps the single biggest breakthrough at the conference was France's unveiling of a national roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in the coming decades. It became the first developed nation to lay out such a plan, with the goals of removing coal from its national grid by 2027, phasing out oil by 2045, and fossil gas by 2050.
The French climate envoy, Benoit Faraco, described it not only as an obligation but an opportunity: “This process has made us realise we want to be an electro-superpower,” he said, according to The Guardian. “We want to be the electricity Saudi Arabia of Europe, selling green electrons to the UK, Ireland, Germany, and other countries.”
Many attendees also agreed that any collective movement away from fossil fuels would require addressing the debt crisis in the Global South, which many countries—especially those in Africa, where national debts have doubled in the past five years—have found themselves cranking up fossil fuel production to cope with.
While the conference concluded without any binding plan for debt forgiveness, which many delegates from developing countries had proposed, the participants agreed that poorer countries would need support to move out of debt and finance a green transition.
"Fossil fuel dependency deepens economic instability, fuels conflict, and traps countries in cycles of debt," said Bronwen Tucker, public finance lead for Oil Change International. "As long as Global South countries remain locked in this system, while Global North governments write the financial rules, public resources will continue to flow away from people and toward the systems driving crisis."
Laura Caicedo, the campaigns coordinator at Greenpeace Colombia, described the conference as "an important space to put the just energy transition on the agenda ahead of the Climate COP," which will take place in Turkey this coming November.
"There is willingness and a sense of fresh momentum that is worth celebrating," she said. "But this is only the beginning: more time is needed for this process to mature into a true platform for dialogue that can inform decision-making in this and other cooperation spaces on key energy issues."
The next conference on Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels is set to occur early next year in Tuvalu, a low-lying Pacific island nation that is at risk of becoming uninhabitable within decades due to sea-level rise.
While climate activists were heartened by the progress made in Santa Marta, Gounden said countries need to come to Tuvalu with concrete plans.
“When we get to Tuvalu, the conversation has to change," she said. "We can’t just bring more ambition; we have to bring proof of implementation."
This week's conference took place against the backdrop of the US and Israel's war in Iran, where US President Donald Trump has suggested a key goal is to "take the oil" controlled by Iran. The obstruction of oil shipments has become a critical piece of strategic and economic leverage and simultaneously inflicted chaos upon the global economy, disrupting humanitarian aid for some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people.
"Amid a tense geopolitical context and worsening climate extremes," said Rodrigo Estrada, Greenpeace International's senior climate adviser, "Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words."
While the war has sent energy companies' profits soaring, the climate advocacy group 350.org estimated this week that the continued blockade of the Strait of Hormuz could cost households and businesses an additional $600 billion to $1 trillion.
"It’s never been clearer that fossil fuel phase-out is imperative for stability and peace," Tucker said. "Every step away from fossil fuels weakens the outsized power and wealth that allows the US to wage illegal wars in the name of energy dominance."
At the next conference, she added, "The richest polluting countries must show they are serious. Canada, Norway, the UK, and the EU must make real plans to accelerate their fossil fuel phaseout at home and come to the table with real economic collaboration."
Mariana Paoli, the climate policy lead for Oxfam, said the lack of action by rich countries was "disappointing" and needed to change.
"Wealthy governments have still not stepped up to provide sufficient climate financing for poorer countries, which face the brunt of the impacts of the climate crisis," she said. "Rich countries hold the historical responsibility for the climate crisis, therefore they must not only move first and faster but also provide finance at scale for others to follow them."
"A just transition," she said, "must make rich polluters pay for the crisis they have caused."
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Colombian President Warns ‘Suicidal’ Fossil-Fueled Capitalism Is Leading World to ‘Barbarism’
“There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy—fossil fuels—that lead to death."
Apr 29, 2026
Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned on Tuesday that the current model of fossil fuel-driven capitalism was leading the world into "barbarism" and "fascism."
According to a Wednesday report from The Guardian, Petro told attendees of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels being held in Santa Marta, Colombia that capitalism's insistence on continued fossil fuel dependence was "suicidal" and driving the world toward more conflict.
"There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy—fossil fuels—that lead to death," said Petro. "Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life... The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.”
Petro also warned that the consequences of sticking with a model of capitalism that centers fossil fuel energy won't be merely economic but also political.
"We are heading towards barbarism," he said. "And barbarism is the prelude to, or the very essence of, fascism."
As reported by Common Dreams last week, the conference in Colombia, which wraps up Wednesday, has featured more than 50 nations discussing strategies to phase out energy based on coal, oil, and gas.
Ralph Regenvanu, minister for climate change of the island nation of Vanuatu, told NPR on Wednesday that his country has been seeing the impacts of the climate crisis up close in the form of rising sea levels and spiraling energy costs.
Because of this, Regenvanu said his government has accelerated plans to begin solar energy and electric vehicle projects, telling NPR that "the decision on EVs was directly stimulated by the crisis."
France was also a major presence at the conference, reported The Guardian, as French climate envoy Benoit Faraco outlined an ambitious plan to make his country a major renewable energy producer.
"This process has made us realize we want to be an electro-superpower," said Faraco. "We want to be the electricity Saudi Arabia of Europe, selling green electrons to the UK, Ireland, Germany, and other countries."
But Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, told The Guardian that the ability to transition away from fossil fuels will be much harder for many developing nations, even though these nations are the ones most adversely impacted by the climate emergency.
"There are many fossil-fuel producing countries in the Global South that are being pushed into expanding fossil fuel production just to feed their debt," Berman explained. "There is an expanding debt crisis in the Global South. It is impossible for countries to even imagine a fossil fuel transition with such limited fiscal space."
Advocates warned that the conference did not appear set to produce new commitments to fund climate action in the Global South, but discussions were taking place about tackling massive subsidies that have been granted annually to fossil fuel giants.
"It is a space where conversations can take place about, for instance, subsidy reform," Leo Roberts of the think tank E3G told The Guardian, "to take the $1.5 trillion in [annual] fossil fuel subsidies and repurpose them to somewhere else.”
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Santa Marta Fossil Fuel Conference Must Emphasize Scourge of Illegal, Unpopular Iran War
Fossil fuels and militarism are part of the same architecture of power. If governments are serious about combating climate change, they must be willing to challenge the political and economic structures that sustain extraction and war.
Apr 25, 2026
We cannot separate fossil fuels from the ongoing US and Israeli war on Iran. The volatility surrounding the Strait of Hormuz has shaken the global economy, restricting the passage of oil from the largest producers in the Gulf region.
The economic costs of this illegal, unjust, and unpopular war are mounting alongside the heartbreaking human costs—including troops lost and thousands killed throughout Iran and Lebanon.
But there’s also a rapidly increasing environmental cost. The first two weeks of Operation Epic Fury alone emitted 5 million tons of carbon dioxide—equivalent to the 84 lowest-emitting countries combined.
The international community must end this war—and address the deeper climate crisis—before more damage is done. Luckily, a vehicle of hope opens up at the end of April in Santa Marta, Colombia, offering a prime chance for countries to move toward a more secure future and livable planet.
The First-Ever Conference to End Fossil Fuels
Governments are gathering in Santa Marta for the first-ever global diplomatic conference explicitly focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels. Co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, the convening brings together dozens of countries, alongside civil society and Indigenous leaders, to do what decades of climate negotiations have failed to do: confront fossil fuels directly.
Unfortunately, international climate negotiations centered on the United Nations process have failed to move us meaningfully closer to a just transition by refusing to confront fossil fuels. Instead, they have relied on emission targets, offsets, and market mechanisms that allow extraction to continue.
Fossil fuels are the lifeline of the modern military-industrial complex. At the same time, militaries exist in part to secure access to fossil fuels.
The Santa Marta conference breaks from this framework. It creates space to ask a more fundamental question: What would it take to actually phase out fossil fuels—and who stands in the way?
The Santa Marta conference is a crucial initial step for stakeholders to commit to a global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. Groups will address the processes, timelines, and actions needed to get to a negotiated agreement for a fossil fuel phaseout, which will be further developed in a future gathering in the Pacific nation of Tuvalu.
The Military-Oil-Industrial Complex
But taking that step seriously requires confronting another issue that has been deliberately sidelined: militarism.
Fossil fuels are the lifeline of the modern military-industrial complex. At the same time, militaries exist in part to secure access to fossil fuels. The infrastructure of war, from weapons production to military bases, locks governments into long-term fossil fuel dependence while also acting as the enforcement arm of fossil fuel interests. Militaries protect oil supply chains, secure trade routes, and shape geopolitical outcomes around these fuels in favor of dominant powers.
Military control over oil and gas long shaped the architecture of global power. This dynamic is visible across the globe. US aggression toward Iran continues to escalate tensions around oil, and the US intervention in Venezuela is inseparable from the country’s position as a major oil producer. In Palestine as well, Israel’s US-backed occupation and control of offshore gas deposits, among other resources, is part of the broader system of colonization that cannot be separated from land, infrastructure, and energy.
As long as nations invest in their militaries at the expense of everything else, fossil fuel dependence won’t be broken. The $2.7 trillion in global military spending in 2024 siphons resources that are desperately needed to achieve a full fossil fuel phaseout and global just transition: healthcare, education, jobs, renewable energy, and direct spending to confront the climate crisis.
The United States is the worst culprit as the highest military spender in the world. The Pentagon is also the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels in the world—it has a larger carbon footprint than most entire countries. Next year, President Donald Trump is demanding a shocking $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. Even now, estimates suggest that the US is spending $1 billion to $2 billion per day on its assault on Iran, while the US contributed just $2 billion to the Green Climate Fund in the span of 10 years.
Santa Marta Must Address Militarism, Too
Militarism does more than protect the fossil fuel system. It actively undermines the possibility of a just transition. That’s why we, along with other groups part of the Santa Marta conference, are calling on countries and stakeholders to consider three demands:
- Address critical gaps in military emissions reporting.
- Reduce the dependence of militaries on fossil fuels.
- Reverse runaway military spending to support a just transition.
Achieving this will require coordinated pressure at all levels—by governments, international bodies, Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders, academics, organizers, and civil society—to get to a fossil fuel phaseout and a more secure world.
The conference in Santa Marta represents a break from decades of delay through the UNFCCC process. But it will only matter if it confronts the full system driving this crisis. Fossil fuels and militarism are part of the same architecture of power. If governments are serious about combating climate change, they must be willing to do more than set targets. They must be willing to challenge the political and economic structures that sustain extraction and war.
That means investing in the real work of a just transition: shifting economics, redistributing resources, and repairing harm that has been done to frontline communities. That means no new fossil fuel expansion. No false solutions that prolong dependence. And no continued investment in systems of violence that undermine the possibility of a just transition.
We can continue to fund war and extraction or we can choose to invest in our communities, in care, and in a future that is not built on sacrifice. Santa Marta opens the door. What comes next depends on whether we are willing to walk through it and to demand our governments to do the same.
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