Something historic happened last week. For the first time in history, nations of the world came together to get serious about getting off fossil fuels. Fifty-seven countries attended the first International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, sponsored by the Colombians and the Dutch, and held in Santa Marta, Columbia. The intention of this gathering was to develop concrete, voluntary roadmaps for transitioning away from coal, oil, and gas.
These 57 countries, including Colombia, the Netherlands, Australia, Germany, France, the UK, Kenya, and small island nations, represent one-third of the world economy. They discussed practical ways to move away from fossil fuels. The resounding message was that fossil fuels are a systemic source of economic and financial instability, undermining health and driving catastrophic climate damage.
The Santa Marta gathering was hatched out of frustration that Big Oil interests had highjacked, co-opted, and stalled U.N. climate talks for years and the gathering took on extra significance because it coincided with the U.S. and Israel’s war of choice in Iran.
What’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz is changing history. Fatih Birol, the head of the International Energy Agency, said recently, “The vase is broken, the damage is done – it will be very difficult to put the pieces back together. This will have permanent consequences for the global energy markets for years to come.”
Already over 130 countries worldwide have introduced emergency measures and fuel rationing as a result of the energy shocks caused by the Iran war. The Santa Marta gathering offered a grounded and hopeful response to the energy upheaval.
Opening the plenary alongside Colombia, Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven told countries:
“Price volatility and dependence on imports are structurally and unacceptably impacting our economies. We need to move away from fossil fuels not only because it is good for the climate, but because it strengthens our energy security. Investment in clean energy also lays the foundation for a more resilient and sustainable economy, capable of mitigating these shocks.”
Dr Maina Talia, climate minister for the island nation of Tuvalu, said that “For years, international climate negotiations have circled around fossil fuels without directly confronting the core issues.”
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez, Panama’s special representative on climate change, noted, “For 34 years, we have negotiated the symptoms of the climate crisis and bulletproofed its cause. Thirty-four years of pledges. And where are we now? Economies built on fossil fuels are unravelling in real time. Fossil fuels are not just dirty. They are unreliable, they are dangerous and they must end.”
Following the opening plenary, ministers and climate envoys spent much of the two-day event in closed-door “breakout sessions”, discussing issues ranging from “planned phase down and closure of fossil-fuel extraction” to “closing gaps in financial and investment systems”.
Science was front and center, including launch of the new global science panel, calling itself the “science panel for global energy transition”, led by Dr Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Dr Carlos Nobre, an eminent researcher on the Amazon rainforest from the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
The major outcomes of this event include the launch of three workstreams:
· The first of these workstreams will focus on developing national and regional roadmaps away from fossil fuels.
· The second workstream will be focused on changing the financial system to better facilitate the transition away from fossil fuels.
· The final workstream will address fossil-fuel-intensive trade, with the aim of advancing progress toward a fossil fuel-free trade system.
Notably, the U.S., Russia, and China were not invited to attend this historic conference. Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told journalists that these countries 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 the last UN climate talks.
This is not surprising given that many national leaders, to appease the Trump regime, are avoiding using the term climate change. Last month the environment ministers of the G7 nations met in Paris, and France intentionally kept climate change off the agenda in an attempt to keep the U.S. from walking out. Good grief, environment ministers avoiding mention of the most existential environmental issue affecting our planet – tragic. Similarly, during King Charles’ recent visit to the U.S. and the surprisingly strong and humorous speech he delivered to Congress, he mentioned environment, but not climate change. That shows just how far the Trump regime’s heads are up their, … or at least stuck in the sand.
Despite the insanity playing out in the U.S., two additional hopeful outcomes resulted from the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels conference. Researchers unveiled a new roadmap showing how Columbia can transition away from fossil fuels. The roadmap says that Colombia can cut its emissions from energy use to 90% below 2015 levels by 2050, through ambitious policies to move away from fossil fuels and electrify its transport sector.
France, despite avoiding the c-word (climate) at the recent G7 environment summit, also unveiled a roadmap and became the first country to set hard deadlines for ditching every fossil fuel: coal by 2030, oil by 2045, and gas by 2050. What makes France’s plan unusual isn’t a single bold target but the fact that it draws one clear line across all three fuels, covering everything from power plants to home heating to transport. As climate envoy Benoît Faraco noted, almost no other country has named an end date this clearly. In a moment of energy anxiety worldwide, naming the destination is itself a quiet act of leadership.
The next in-person Transition Away from Fossil Fuels conference will take place in Tuvalo in 2027. Low elevation island nation Tuvalu is facing an existential threat from climate-related rising sea levels.
To be truthful, I’m skeptical of the effectiveness of burning a bunch of fossil fuel to get together to talk about not burning fossil fuel. Also, I don’t believe it’s a viable option to continue the escalation of overall energy and materials consumption even if it’s fully powered by renewable energy. But despite those reservations I’m hopeful about this new effort to openly address a pathway beyond fossil fuel. Participants of the Santa Marta conference noted that the process was less formal, clipped, and transactional than UN negotiations. There was time and a safe environment for deeper discussion and debate. Relationships were built. Sometimes personal human interaction and communication is essential for accomplishing big things, and safeguarding the livability of our planet and the economic security of billions of people most certainly qualifies as a big thing.
As the Iran war drags on, gas prices climb, and Big Oil firms are making record windfall profits from the war, at least someone is talking about a saner way forward. The next step is to move from talk to effective action.
Where Spirit Meets Social Change
First published in Spirituality & Health, May/June 2026
I’m a deeply spiritual person, an ordained minister even. I’m also a political beast, news junkie, and activist. To some, that might seem incongruous, but I don’t believe politics and spirituality are mutually exclusive. In fact, given our troubled world, there has never been a more important time for spiritually principled people to act, to shift policies, political processes, and confront failed leadership.
In a world facing ecological crises, injustice, cruelty, and collective anxiety, there is great power in refusing to separate inner transformation from outer action. Sacred activism represents the marriage of profound spiritual practice with passionate engagement to stop harm being done to people, fellow species, and the natural world. It asks the profound question: What if our deepest spiritual work and our most urgent social action are not separate paths, but one integrated calling?
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