What was missing from Santa Marta summit on fossil fuel transition?

For the second time in six months, a global conference took place in South America aiming to change the game in addressing the climate crisis.

The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) held in Santa Marta, Colombia, and co-hosted by the Netherlands is hailed as a successful first step in a new era of climate diplomacy. Unlike COP30 in Belem, Brazil that would not even dare to mention “fossil fuels” in its decision text, this conference fully confronted this critical issue and initiated to find ways to end global dependence on them.

There are so many things to discuss in a complicated issue like breaking free from fossil fuels. The Santa Marta Conference focused more on figuring out how to overcome the barriers and enable concrete pathways for phasing out coal, oil, and gas. Framing the TAFF as a matter of national security as much as for energy was understandably prevalent in this meeting, especially with the war in the Middle East.

However, there are several important concerns that should be addressed by the dozens of countries that are now part of this coalition between now and its 2027 meeting hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland.

What about nature?

The TAFF discourse becomes more appealing, especially to those still unconvinced to join the coalition, if it presents feasible alternatives to the status quo. And there is no better alternative than renewable energy (RE). Yet we cannot discuss that without considering energy transition minerals and its effects on the natural environment.

This is not to say that nature was fully absent from the discourse in Santa Marta. Some of the discussions touched on ecosystems restoration as part of workforce transitions and closure of extraction sites of energy transition minerals. Others called for multi-country coordination to enable cleaner value chains and transition finance that would not induce further social or environmental harm.

But the environmental dimension must be featured more prominently in future TAFF discussions, especially with the growing cases of RE projects encroaching in key biodiversity areas or lands owned by Indigenous Peoples. This message was highlighted far more in the People’s Declaration, while also aligned with the growing calls to integrate climate-nature interlinkages into policy and decision-making.

Failure to properly monitor the impacts of RE across entire value chains on the environment would result in significant damages to communities and ecosystems alike. This then risks turning public perception of RE into something no one outside the fossil fuel industry wants it to be framed as – false solutions.

Will developed countries help?

While some of the historical-polluter countries were present in Santa Marta and a few unveiling their national roadmaps, there were some elephants in the room that were left unaddressed.

The biggest of these is how developed countries would fulfill their obligations to provide sufficient means of implementation to developing nations to enable their respective just energy transitions. The conference taking place outside of the UNFCCC does not mean that principles under that and the Paris Agreement or the issues under those frameworks – non-market approaches and just transition, to name a few – do not apply here.

Yes, developed countries are the ones that must bear the bigger responsibility and have more urgency to undergo genuine decarbonization. But helping developing countries with their TAFF initiatives would strengthen the odds of still limiting future warming to below 1.5°C, the target under the Paris Agreement that becomes more and more unlikely with each passing year. 

While the Santa Marta conference avoided having its internal momentum crippled by the uncomfortable question of climate finance compared to COPs, this will not last long. For this “coalition of the willing” to grow as is intended, developing countries looking on from the outside must be assured that their entry into this will come with a more enhanced commitment from developed nations to address the finance gap. 

And no, this should not be through the usual buffet of “innovative” finance flows that have been shown in previous years, many of which are slow, inflexible, and inaccessible.

How will this affect COPs?

Some participants, especially on LinkedIn, have proclaimed the Santa Marta conference as the start of a new norm. It could be, but expectations must be managed a bit here. 

One way or another, any success from this parallel process will ultimately go through the slow and inefficient COP process, with the aim to complement and accelerate it. The road does not just go straight to Tuvalu next year; it will have to pass by Türkiye for COP31, with its figurative traffic jams, stop signs, and roadblocks from pro-fossil fuel interests.

But there is some momentum within the UNFCCC. In Belem, over 40% of Parties backed the call for a COP30 Presidency-led TAFF Roadmap, which will be informed by the outcomes from the recently-concluded conference. Side events have also long existed within COPs that allow discussions on the granular implementation of fossil fuel transition strategies, with the challenge now on elevating it to the highest level. That can be done, to a certain extent, by members of this “coalition of the willing” genuinely integrating TAFF-er commitments into their next NDCs.

Even with its shortcomings, what happened in Santa Marta is part of a glimpse into what the future of climate multilateralism could look like – conferences that are more oriented towards actionable solutions over jargon on paper, more respectful of science and evidence instead of ignoring it, and more open for participation from non-government stakeholders.

But reforming diplomacy must not come at the cost of accountability – of the public or private sector.  As long as polluters are not held accountable, the game is never fully changed.

illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.