- The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which took place in April 2026, in Colombia, released its final report on June 23 at the London Climate Action Week.
- The so-called Santa Marta Process, arising from a meeting between 57 nations, is not meant to replace the U.N. climate framework consensus process, but rather to complement it. The SMP explores the means for moving beyond decades of diplomatic deadlock.
- The new report offers five practical pathways to a just, orderly, and equitable fossil fuels transition, a process requiring stronger international cooperation and more effective and robust governance frameworks from what currently exist.
- The report’s key findings, including a shift of financing and subsides away from fossil fuels to green energy, was agreed to by 57 countries forming the so-called “Coalition of the Willing.” But Colombia and the Netherlands, which sponsored the April summit, already appear to be realigning their nations with fossil fuels.
London Climate Action Week (LCAW) kicked off in June amid an unprecedented European heat wave and with a special statement by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warning, “We have just lived through the eleven hottest years ever recorded … with higher temperatures to come. London isn’t just calling — it’s cooking,” he said.
“We cannot double down on a system based on fossil fuels that is driving both the climate crisis and the energy crisis … These twin crises have once again exposed the limits of an outdated model of development,” the U.N. chief said. “This is our moment of choice. Our moment of truth. Our moment of opportunity. Let’s seize it.”
Just such an opportunity came later at LCAW with the launch of the outcome report derived from the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which was held in April in Santa Marta, Colombia. That landmark summit was co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands and convened 57 countries, a “Coalition of the Willing” accounting for roughly 30% of global energy demand and about 20% of global energy supply — a group committed to a rapid fossil fuel phaseout.
The meeting was called to serve as a viable complement to the formal U.N. climate consensus negotiating process, which has been blocked from climate action for decades by large petrostates and lobbied against by the fossil fuel industry.
The new report released June 23 presents a summary of Coalition of the Willing stakeholder-led dialogues and includes strategies for a rapid and pragmatic fossil fuel transition. The 176-page report outlines five pathways to a swift equitable transition:
- Collective action for a “transition away from fossil fuels through global partnership;”
- Accelerated global progress achieved by spreading “the spirit of Santa Marta to achieve system wide-coherence;”
- Development or strengthening of “national and regional roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels.”
- “Overcoming fossil fuel-related macroeconomic dependencies, scaling up transition investment, and addressing barriers in the international and domestic financial architecture” — especially fossil fuel subsidies.
- Aligning producers and consumers toward achieving decarbonized trade balances and supporting green economic transformation.
“The handover of the Santa Marta Report to the COP30 Presidency marks an important step in addressing both the climate crisis and energy insecurity, which are deeply intertwined with the dynamics of fossil fuel markets. This has long been a difficult conversation, yet one that the Santa Marta Coalition chose to confront head-on,” said Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Irene Vélez Torres in a press release.
In 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement saw the world’s nations agree to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels. Relentless fossil fuel burning and the El Niño of 2023-24 pushed the planet past that aspirational goal for the very first time. Image by David Trinks via Unsplash.
Setbacks to ending fossil fuel subsidies
The Santa Marta meeting took place in a world facing a rapidly escalating climate crisis and on the verge of another Super El Niño. Add to that nations shaken by the U.S.-Israel War on Iran and the shutting of the Strait of Hormuz, even as countries watch a generalized decline in oil reserves requiring investments of around $570 billion annually just to maintain current production.
The new report recognizes this multifaceted global emergency, though participants in the Santa Marta Process bemoaned national backpedaling. “The world cannot keep funding fossil fuel companies while ordinary people pay the price of the climate crisis,” Netherlands Member of Parliament Sjoukje van Oosterhout told Mongabay.
“As co-chair of the Coalition on Phasing Out Fossil Fuel Incentives, the Dutch government carries a responsibility to lead,” she said. “But leading means more than sitting in the chair.”
The Santa Marta Process is calling for sweeping reforms of global fiscal systems and a realignment of energy subsidies to rapidly move the world’s nations away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
But van Oosterhout noted that the Dutch government isn’t moving to end fossil fuel subsidies at home and invest in the green transition. “Instead, the Minister [Stientje] van Veldhoven, co-chair of the [Santa Maria] Conference, has actually increased the Dutch government’s fossil fuel subsidies this year, and is now considering increasing them even further. Meanwhile, the businesses who are frontrunners of the new green economy are left to compete on an uneven playing field.”
“A fossil fuel treaty is a logical and necessary next step, but it requires governments like the Netherlands to show genuine ambition, not just co-chair a coalition on paper while expanding fossil fuel subsidies at home,” van Oosterhout added.
Colombia retreats
The nation of Colombia was the local host for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, but that historic event seems to have had minimal impact on Colombia’s public opinion or on its presidential election.
A debate preceding Colombia’s elections took place on June 21, and it did revolve partly around the topic of energy. The now newly elected far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella proposed fossil fuel “fracking as much as possible,” while the defeated Iván Cepeda’s campaign argued that fracking is an “obsolete technique,” and that Colombia shouldn’t rely on outdated fossil fuels as the world transitions to clean energy.
Speaking to Mongabay, Andrés Gómez, coordinator for Latin America of the Initiative for a Fossil Fuels Treaty, expressed concern that Colombia’s continued embrace of fossil fuels is self-harming, as a country especially vulnerable to the climate crisis, while lacking ready access to fossil fuels: Its oil deposit represents just 0.1% of global reserves.
“Almost all abundant and accessible hydrocarbons have already been discovered [in Colombia] and are now in decline. Investment in exploration has only managed to replace 11% of the production of the last decade, with discovery costs three times higher than the global average,” Gómez added.
‘International cooperation must be anchored by a fossil fuel treaty’
Despite such setbacks, Vanuatu has already announced that it, along with Ireland, will co-host the next conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, to be held in the Pacific nation in 2027.
“Together, we will be carrying this process forward to the Pacific. Deepening solutions and confronting the barriers we have named together … strengthening international cooperation and confronting the [fossil fuel] narrative that forces false choices,” said Maina Vakafua Talia, Tuvalu’s minister for Home Affairs, Climate Change, and Environment in his closing speech in Santa Marta.
Harjeet Singh, strategy advisor for the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative who spoke to Mongabay while attending LCAW, said that the comprehensive report from the Santa Marta conference is essential reading for global leaders, policymakers and climate advocates.
“It rightly recognizes that transitioning away from fossil fuels goes beyond a mere energy shift; it demands a broad economic, political, and social transformation,” he said.
The new report outlines the challenges ahead, noting that overcoming past and current structural fossil fuel dependencies will require all nations to address severe economic constraints — such as Global South debt burdens and high capital costs — by introducing expanded, non-debt-creating finance and technology transfer.
“Crucially, [the report] stresses that [the fossil fuel transition] must be rights-based and territorially grounded,” Singh said. “International cooperation — anchored by a formal mechanism like a fossil fuel treaty — must actively back the Global South’s efforts and leadership to ensure the transition builds equitable, resilient societies without reproducing historical inequalities or new forms of extractivism.”
Banner image: Left to right, the Netherlands’ Minister for Climate Policy and Green Growth, Stientje van Veldhoven; along with Colombia’s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Irene Vélez Torres; and Ana Toni, COP30 CEO, during the launch of the outcome report from the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels at the London Climate Action Week. Image courtesy of Wilder García/ Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia.
Fossil fuel transition summit seeks progress beyond stalled COP talks
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Cite this article
Julian Reingold (2026). Santa Marta report by 57 nations defines rapid fossil fuel transition path. Mongabay Conservation news. DOI: https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322332Credits
