From Santa Marta: Colombia Puts the Future of Fossil Fuels on the Global Agenda

As governments gather on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, RFM Productions examines what the world’s first international conference dedicated to transitioning away from fossil fuels could mean for Latin America, the Amazon and communities living on the front lines of extraction.

SANTA MARTA, COLOMBIA | APRIL 2026 - RFM PRODUCTIONS

This week, the global debate over fossil fuels is moving to Latin America. From April 24–29, governments, scientists, Indigenous representatives, civil society organizations and climate advocates are gathering in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first international conference dedicated specifically to the question of how countries can transition away from fossil fuels.

Co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels is bringing representatives from roughly 50 countries to Colombia’s Caribbean coast. (AP News⁠)

For RFM Productions, covering environmental and climate issues across Latin America, the significance of this gathering extends far beyond another international climate conference.

The meeting is taking place in a country that embodies one of the central contradictions facing Latin America: how can nations protect ecosystems, respond to climate change and transition toward cleaner energy while their economies and communities remain connected to oil, gas and coal?

That question is especially important for a region containing the Amazon — one of the planet’s most important climate systems — while simultaneously facing intense pressure for continued extraction and economic development.

Why Santa Marta Matters

There is something significant about this conversation taking place here.

Santa Marta sits between the Caribbean Sea and the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a region of extraordinary ecological and cultural importance. The Sierra Nevada is home to Indigenous peoples whose relationship with this territory stretches back centuries.

At the same time, Colombia’s Caribbean region is closely connected to the country’s coal economy.

This is therefore not an abstract location for a debate about fossil fuels.

The consequences of extraction — and the enormous challenge of moving beyond it — are part of the political and economic reality of the region.

The conference itself is also unusual.

Rather than waiting for nearly 200 countries to reach consensus through the traditional United Nations climate process, governments participating in Santa Marta are exploring whether coalitions of willing countries can move more quickly on one of the most politically difficult questions in climate policy.

At COP30 in Belém last November, more than 80 countries supported developing a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, but consensus did not emerge. The Santa Marta conference grew partly from that frustration. (Financial Times⁠)

The question this week is whether Santa Marta can move that conversation from diplomatic language toward something governments can actually implement.

The World Is Talking About Climate Change. Santa Marta Is Talking About the Source.

For years, international climate negotiations have concentrated heavily on emissions: how much countries emit, how quickly those emissions should decline and how renewable energy can expand.

Santa Marta is confronting another part of the equation more directly:
the continued production and consumption of coal, oil and gas.

The distinction matters.

Countries can promise emissions reductions while continuing to approve fossil-fuel projects. Governments can expand renewable energy while remaining financially dependent on oil and gas revenues.

And the global economy can become cleaner in some sectors while continuing to consume enormous quantities of fossil fuels elsewhere.

Santa Marta is attempting to address these contradictions.

The discussions include not only climate targets but the economic, legal, financial and political barriers preventing countries from reducing their dependence on fossil fuels.

For Latin America, the Transition Is Also an Economic Question

From Colombia to Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico and beyond, fossil fuels remain intertwined with national development.

Oil and gas generate government revenue. Extractive industries provide jobs. Exports bring foreign currency into economies already struggling with debt, inequality and limited access to affordable international financing.

That makes calls to simply “stop fossil fuels” considerably more complicated when viewed from the Global South.

A government dependent on oil revenue cannot eliminate that income overnight without answering another question:

What replaces it?

The same applies to workers and communities.

A just transition cannot mean closing an industry and leaving communities without employment. Nor can wealthy countries that built their economies through generations of fossil-fuel consumption simply transfer the economic burden of the transition to developing countries.

This week, those questions are moving closer to the center of the conversation.

Among the issues being discussed are fossil-fuel subsidies, economic diversification, financing, debt and the international financial structures that can make transitioning significantly harder for developing economies.

One April 24 Santa Marta session, for example, is examining fossil-fuel subsidy reform. The International Institute for Sustainable Development reports that government support for fossil fuels remained above $921 billion globally in 2024. (IISD⁠)

That is an extraordinary amount of public money flowing through an energy system governments simultaneously say they intend to transform.

A Parallel Conversation Is Happening Outside Government Rooms

Santa Marta this week is not one conference happening inside one building.

Around the official governmental gathering, scientists, activists, Indigenous representatives and civil society organizations are holding their own meetings.

On April 24 and 25, the Global Science & Policy Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels is bringing researchers and policy specialists together at the Universidad del Magdalena to examine both the production and consumption sides of fossil-fuel phaseout. (Fossil Fuel Treaty⁠)

From April 24–26, a separate People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future is providing civil society organizations with a space to develop their own demands for an equitable transition. (Fossil Fuel Treaty⁠)

There is also a Conference for Fossil Fuel-Free Territories focused on communities confronting extraction directly. (Fossil Fuel Treaty⁠)

These parallel gatherings matter because government negotiations alone cannot define what constitutes a “just” transition.

The people living beside mines, pipelines, refineries, forests and energy infrastructure will experience the transition very differently from the officials designing policies in national capitals.

The Amazon Cannot Be Separated From This Conversation

For RFM, one of the most important questions coming out of Santa Marta is what this transition will mean for the Amazon.

The Amazon is often presented internationally as a forest that must be protected.

It is also a home.

Millions of people live across the Amazon basin. Indigenous nations have protected these territories for generations. Communities need schools, health systems, transportation, employment and economic opportunity.

Meanwhile, governments face pressure to exploit oil, gas, minerals, timber and other resources.

Transitioning away from fossil fuels therefore cannot simply create a new wave of extraction under the banner of clean energy.

Solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries and electrical grids require minerals. Latin America possesses significant reserves of many of the materials the global energy transition increasingly demands.

If the world replaces oil extraction with poorly governed mineral extraction in Indigenous territories and sensitive ecosystems, we will have changed technologies without fully changing the underlying model.

A green transition is not automatically a just transition.

That distinction should remain at the center of the discussions taking place in Colombia.

Indigenous Communities Must Be Participants, Not Symbols

Santa Marta also raises a broader question about who gets to design the global energy transition.

For decades, Indigenous communities have frequently been invited into environmental discussions after governments and institutions have already determined the structure of development.

That cannot continue.

The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta itself demonstrates why.

The Indigenous peoples of this region understand the territory through systems of knowledge that connect mountains, rivers, forests, oceans and human communities. The Santa Marta Process describes the region as the “Heart of the World,” reflecting the understanding of the four Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada. (Santa Marta Process⁠)

If international leaders are serious about creating a different relationship with energy and natural resources, Indigenous knowledge cannot simply appear in opening ceremonies.

It must influence decisions.

The Countries Missing From Santa Marta Matter Too

There is also an important limitation to acknowledge.

Some of the world’s largest emitters and fossil-fuel powers are not participating.

The United States, China, India and Russia are absent from the conference, even as countries including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and Turkey are represented. (The Guardian⁠)

That raises an unavoidable question:
How far can a global transition process advance without some of the world’s largest energy producers and consumers at the table?

Santa Marta may not answer that question this week.

But it may demonstrate whether a smaller coalition can build enough political momentum to eventually change the larger conversation.

What RFM Is Watching
As the conference unfolds, RFM Productions will be watching for something more concrete than another climate declaration.

Will governments begin putting actual timelines behind the phrase “transition away”?

Will developing countries receive meaningful financial support?

Will discussions about debt and international finance become part of climate policy rather than a separate conversation?

Will Indigenous and frontline communities have meaningful influence over the policies being proposed?

And will governments confront the difficult reality that protecting the Amazon while expanding extraction cannot continue indefinitely without consequences?

These are the questions that matter beyond Santa Marta.

Santa Marta Is a Test

The world does not lack climate promises.

It lacks implementation at the scale demanded by the crisis.

That is why what happens in Santa Marta this week deserves attention.

This gathering represents an attempt to confront an issue that international climate diplomacy has struggled with for decades: not simply how to make fossil fuels cleaner or compensate for their emissions, but how economies eventually move beyond them.

For Latin America, that transition cannot be designed solely around carbon.

It must also address inequality, debt, development, Indigenous rights, biodiversity, employment and the right of communities to determine what happens to their territories.

Whether Santa Marta can begin translating those principles into practical policy remains to be seen.

But this week, from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a conversation the world has repeatedly postponed is finally being placed directly on the table:

If the age of fossil fuels must eventually end, who gets to decide what comes next — and who will bear the cost of getting there?

RFM Productions is an independent nonprofit media organization covering environmental justice, climate, communities and the Amazon across Latin America.