Santa Marta, Colombia's main coal-export port on the Caribbean coast, hosted an unusual conference at the end of April. About 60 governments gathered there for five days to discuss ending the trade in fossil fuels. The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels closed on April 29, after meetings that began on April 24. Colombia and the Netherlands organized the event, which also attracted around 100 sub-national governments, 1,000 civil society organizations, Indigenous representatives, scientists and youth groups.
Notably, the United States, China, India and Russia were not invited. Fossil-fuel industry lobbyists were explicitly banned. Organizers wanted to build a coalition willing to take action, avoiding the obstruction that stopped progress at COP30 in Belém last November.
Big coal and oil producers like Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway attended alongside small island states led by Tuvalu. Colombia's Environment Minister, Irene Vélez Torres, called this a "new power" of nations ready to move first.
No binding treaty was signed. However, the conference created important infrastructure for the future. Scientists launched the Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition, led by Vera Songwe from Cameroon, Ottmar Edenhofer from Germany, and Gilberto M. Jannuzzi from Brazil. Their message was clear: governments must stop all new fossil-fuel projects immediately. A second phase-out conference will follow in the South Pacific, with results presented at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, in November.