The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels has officially closed in Santa Marta, Colombia, following several days of negotiations and the People’s Summit for a Fossil Free Future. The conference convened more than 60 states to discuss the energy transition. However, the inclusion of members from social, environmental, Indigenous, peasant, workers, and feminist movements who had come together just days earlier to chart a path toward a truly just transition was limited. The outcomes reflect an effort to phase out fossil fuels, but the question still remains as to whether that transition will be just.

“The agreement made in Santa Marta to continue a process on transitioning away from fossil fuels comes at a critical point in history, within the context of the worsening climate crisis, escalating militarism led by the United States and Israel, and transnational corporations cementing their power. The only way out of today’s environmental and social crises is through an anti-imperialist, feminist, and just energy transition. This requires systemic change to the current energy model – away from corporate-dominated, privatised energy systems or the race to extract critical minerals and towards decentralised, renewables for energy sovereignty for all.”

Kirtana Chandrasekaran
Friends of the Earth International

Transnational corporations, like Chevron and Total, back the transition push, promote false solutions, and develop ways to exert corporate power over states and maintain control over energy systems. Still, the outcomes of the conference leave the door open to false solutions and largely ignore the dangers of Investor-State Dispute Settlements.

“ISDS allows corporations to sue countries over collective energy and resource choices. Usually, the investor wins, and people and the climate lose. The majority of claims are brought by Global North investors against Global South states, allowing fossil fuel and mining companies to operate, extracting and exploiting, with impunity. The just energy transition we’re building can’t happen without the end of ISDS, but the outcomes ignore this reality.”

Frances Verkamp
Friends of the Earth Europe

In the Global South, communities are increasingly threatened by false solutions, as expressed by delegates at the summit:

“Indonesia’s just energy transition is being derailled by dangerous false solutions to the climate and energy crisis. Nuclear and biomass projects, carbon markets, and the like only entrench fossil fuel dependence. Opening the door for private entities and financial institutions to push false solutions through privatised climate finance, as the outcomes do, only creates a lifeline for big polluters. False solutions and the privatisation of climate finance take away from the real solutions held by communities that are within reach and necessary for the just energy transition.”

Wahyu Eka
WALHI / Friends of the Earth Indonesia

One of the key questions surrounding the energy transition is the race for critical minerals. It was a focus for the People’s Summit, but absent in the conference’s outcomes, ignoring the role of extractive industries altogether.

“The imperialist project isn’t just rooted in fossil fuels. Today, the same imperialist forces that have created and fueled the climate crisis, as well as genocide and war, are turning their gaze to critical minerals, establishing control over territories to extend extraction and mining for militarism and corporate-led ‘green transitions’. The corporations fueling this violence seem to go unmentioned in the outcomes. The transition can only be just if it is unequivocally anti-imperialist, ensuring an end to extractivism and unequal consumption of energy and resources.”

Siphesihle Mvundla
groundWork / Friends of the Earth South Africa

“This conference helps bring to light a debate that had previously been silenced. However, its impact is limited by conclusions that do not propose a new framework or new international mechanisms.”

Catalina Caro
CENSAT / Friends of the Earth Colombia

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Media contacts
Ghislaine Fandel // ghislaine@foei.org // @FoEint // In Santa Marta 24-30 April