The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels was held in Santa Maria, Columbia on 24-29 April.
The conference was one of the outcomes of the COP 30 conference held in Belem, Brazil during 2025. Our summary of the main decisions coming from that COP can be found here.
As a briefing paper prepared for the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee of the European Parliament published on 13 April 2026 published before the event said:
The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) is intended to mark a fresh start by providing a “safe harbour” for state and non-governmental actors that aim to advance the transition at the national and international level. Co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands, the conference aims to form a “coalition of the willing”, establish a science-led coordination process, and produce a consolidated report on concrete transition solutions.[1]
and
The conference in Santa Marta is an example of two-tier multilateralism. International cooperation initiatives that do not require the agreement of all parties to the UNFCCC are increasingly important for implementation. In this case, they are crucial for [the Transitioning Away From Fossil Fuels conference]. According to the conference co-hosts, the rationale for pursuing “parallel tracks” is not to challenge the COP’s consensus-based approach, but rather to complement it. With this conference being the first of its kind, this briefing will outline the conference’s methodology as well as central dynamics and processes: enablers and barriers, TAFF in the UNFCCC context, parallel initiatives as well as EU actions in the field.[2]
The conference was structure around three thematic pillars, with the one of most interest to us being:
Advancing international cooperation and climate diplomacy: Recognising that current progress is insufficient, this pillar seeks to strengthen international frameworks. It identifies implementation gaps in the UNFCCC and explores the need for “explicitly binding international regulations”. Key focus topics include removing legal barriers, specifically Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions that allow corporations to sue states over climate measures, and fostering “vanguard” coalitions among ambitious governments and cities.[3]
It was of note that some countries were not invited, with Carbon Brief reporting:
At the summit’s opening press conference on 24 April, Vélez Torres confirmed that Colombia and the Netherlands had decided to only invite a select group of countries to the conference.
Vélez Torres told journalists that countries including China, Russia and the US were not invited. She suggested that they had not shown the necessary spirit to be part of the “coalition of the willing” and that Colombia wanted to avoid a rehashing of the lengthy debates at COP30. (Carbon Brief understands that India was also not invited.)
The conference was divided into two phases.
The first constituted a set of ‘self-organised and stakeholder led dialogues’, which fed into the High-Level segment of the conference.
This included a meeting of senior officers and ministers from nations representing the ‘highest ambition coalition’ seeking a Fossil Fuel Treaty although the result went no further than seeking the next COP to agree to a formal negotiation process for a binding treaty instrument and to advance proposals for ‘an Importers-Exporters Club, a Global Just Transition Fund and a Debt Resolution Facility to remove barriers to an equitable phase out (of fossil fuels)’.
Australia was one of 60 countries participating in the ‘High-Level’ segment of the conference.
The co-hosts (Columbia and the Netherlands) prepared a ‘takeaway document’ (a term typically used in the Paris process to connote a relatively informal non-binding summary of discussions (compared to a more formal ‘synthesis report’).
In recognising that the energy transition is ‘past its point of no return’[4], the effective outcome of the conference was contained in the last paragraph of the takeaway document:
Participants discussed the creation of operational frontrunner cooperation mechanisms. The participants responded on the basis of the three workstreams: 1) work on roadmaps advised by the Scientific Panel launched during the conference; 2) work on macroeconomic dependencies and financial architecture; 3) work on producer-consumer alignment for fossil fuel transition. The participants suggested additional aspects, such as basing the roadmaps on science, and considering country clusters with similar challenges for the roadmaps workstream, creating for example blueprints for specific types of countries. For workstream 2, participants’ suggestions included to discuss fiscal constraints and alternative revenue generation, while for workstream 3, the academic group on central banks that participated in this week’s process said they will continue to engage in a Santa Marta Financial Stability Group to continue this open engagement.[5]
With respect to the first workstream Carbon Brief reported:
The first of these workstreams will focus on developing national and regional roadmaps away from fossil fuels.
Speaking in plenary, Vélez Torres said that the roadmaps should be “connected” to countries’ UN climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs). She added that it would be important for the roadmaps to be “very clear and honest” about “emissions exported from producing countries”
although at the last press conference it was clarified that countries are not obligated to produce a new fossil-fuel roadmap and that participation in all work streams is voluntary.
In relation to the second workstream, Carbon Brief reported:
This will include work to identify fossil-fuel subsidies and find solutions to “debt traps”. It will be supported by the International Institute for Sustainable Development think tank, the co-hosts said
and in relation to the third workstream:
The final workstream will address fossil-fuel-intensive trade, with the aim of “advancing progress towards a fossil fuel-free trade system”, Vélez Torres said. This workstream will be supported by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of wealthy nations.
The conference concluded with mixed reviews, summed up in this African perspective:
A core fault line ran between governments advocating a gradual transition and civil society actors demanding a binding and immediate phase-out. Several state representatives argued that fossil fuels remain embedded in national development strategies and supported language around “phasing down” emissions and expanding low-carbon alternatives, but stopped short of endorsing a full and rapid fossil fuel phase-out.
In contrast, civil society organisations and frontline communities pushed for explicit commitments to halt all new fossil fuel exploration and expansion, establish a clear timeline for a global phase-out, and provide financial and technical support to affected communities
and
So, was this a successful outing or another stalemate? In our view, whether the Santa Marta meeting constitutes a success depends on the metric applied. From a diplomatic perspective, the absence of a unified position shows ongoing fragmentation in global climate politics, particularly on fossil fuels. For instance, the gap between incremental transition strategies and calls for rapid phase-out remains unresolved. However, the meeting amplified pressure from civil society and reinforced the framing of fossil fuels as a central issue in climate negotiations, rather than a peripheral one. Also, the prominence of the People’s Declaration signals a continued effort to shift the debate toward equity, historical responsibility, and legally binding commitments.
Comment
Pretty much a jaw, jaw is better than war, war outcome.
No final outcomes were determined, but the concept of developing a framework for transitioning away from fossil fuels was kept incrementally moving.
This incrementalism, by which:
- A review of ‘financial infrastructure’ by (in this instance) a largely government and institution funded think tank based in Canada); and
- broad reform suggestions are made in a relatively informal document such as the Santa Marta ‘takeaway document’
is similar to way research was used and broad agreements were made in Glasgow that led the Morrison Government to abandon its previous approach to the Paris process and adopt its (unsuccessful) ‘technology not taxes’ position.
While Turkey and not Australia is hosting COP 31, Australia provides the President of Negotiations with a brief to ‘shape and guide global decision making in support of the multilateral system of global trade and investment in clean energy industries’.
The Climate Change Authority has published advice to the Government called Decarbonisation Deals: A Proposed COP Negotiations Presidency Initiative, with the full document indicating:
Globally, the focus has shifted decisively from ambition-setting to implementation, finance and supply chains. This shift is reshaping the role of COPs, from primarily multilateral UNFCCC negotiations to hubs for plurilateral and bilateral deal-making, often with industry at the table. The creation of a COP negotiations presidency comes at an opportune moment, with scope to define negotiations broadly and to use the presidency’s convening power to advance practical agreements that accelerate real-world outcomes alongside formal United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) processes.[6]
Having signed up to the Belem Declaration, whether
- Australia promotes the Santa Maria outcomes within the paradigm set out above; and, more generally
- adopts slowly (and when politically able) an approach to drive climate reform through the adoption of legally binding agreements (cf the current approach) because of the presence of an international consensus
will be interesting.
Let’s see.
[1] Page 1
[2] Ibid
[3] Briefing paper:12
[4] Takeaway document:2
[5] Page 15
[6] Page 5