On 23 June 2026, during London Climate Action Week, Colombia and the Netherlands released the final outcome report of the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. The Santa Marta conference, held in April, was the start of the first international process discussing the just transition from fossil fuels.

Executive Summary

“Let us take a first decisive step towards a clean, people-centered, secure, sovereign and inclusive energy future for all”
Selwin Hart, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary General on Climate Action and Just Transition.

From 24 to 29 April 2026 Colombia and the Netherlands organized the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. The conference, hosted in Santa Marta, convened 57 countries and more than 1000 stakeholders to advance global commitments made under the Paris Agreement. Over the course of five days, countries and representatives from 14 groups created a safe space for dialogue on how to advance a just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels.

At COP28 in Dubai, the international community already recognized the need to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. However, practical cooperation on how to do so remains limited. Discussions at COP30 in Belém further highlighted the need for a complementary process to advance action among countries and stakeholders.

Since the beginning of this year, growing geopolitical tensions and continued volatility in energy markets have reinforced the urgency of reducing fossil fuel dependence. It is necessary for energy security, economic resilience, and climate action. In this context, the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels developed an innovative, inclusive, and action-oriented space to help countries move towards more sustainable, sovereign and secure energy systems. In doing so, it has brought together a broad ‘coalition of doers’ from across the globe.

A comprehensive, transparent, and inclusive process ensured the success of Santa Marta. In the weeks and months ahead, each stakeholder group came together to start collaborating on a shared vision for the conference. The conference brought them together with countries representing 1/3 of global GDP, 30% of fossil fuel demand, and 20% of fossil fuel supply.

Dialogues were open and constructive, and countries spoke honestly about the challenges they face. Seated in small breakout groups, there was no doubt about the others’ commitment and good will. The dialogue worked because it was devoid of judgement. It worked because there was no need to come with negotiated outcomes. It is this ‘spirit of Santa Marta’ that energizes the work ahead, to advance and accelerate implementation, and give the transition away from fossil fuels a central place in global conversations.

The conference highlighted that countries are already making progress in the transition. Fossil fuels are responsible for over 75% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. However, rapid growth in renewable energy deployment, technological innovation, and investment confirms that the shift towards cleaner energy systems has gained significant momentum. By 2025, global renewable energy capacity is almost 50% higher than in 2023 and nearly all new energy demand is met through renewables. Actions taken to date prove that the energy transition is past its point of no return.

At the same time, countries still have structural dependencies to overcome. This was likewise clear in the conversations in Santa Marta. Dependencies vary across countries, but they include fiscal and economic dependence, debt constraints, limited fiscal space, high costs of capital, technological constraints, and trade- related issues that can slow progress.

Based on the input from all participants ahead and during the conference, Colombia and the Netherlands have developed a ‘Santa Marta Vision’ for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. It contains ten key points:

1. Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels is one of the defining priorities of our time. It is essential to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep a 1.5°C future within reach. It is also essential to respond to current economic, social, and geopolitical shocks while building long-term energy security, resilience, and a basis for economic prosperity that is grounded in social and environmental sustainability.

2. An open and flexible coalition of doers goes beyond the lowest common denominator. Meaningful progress often begins with a small group prepared to move forward. Collective action should be grounded in shared objectives while recognizing different national and territorial realities. Ambition and inclusiveness can advance together when countries cooperate around practical solutions and mutual support.

3. Favorable conditions for the transition exist, but accelerated progress requires stronger governance and action across multiple policy domains. These favorable conditions include falling renewable energy costs, technological innovation, and growing experience with implementation. Yet, opportunities and benefits remain unevenly distributed. Ensuring that all countries and communities can benefit requires stronger governance, international cooperation, and reforms to address barriers and implementation, to generate further ambition.

4. Transitioning away from fossil fuels is not simply about substituting one source of energy for another. It is a broad economic, political, social, and institutional transformation, from the global to the local level, to overcome structural dependencies. It involves governance systems, local knowledge, existing decision-making processes, and looking at financial flows, sectoral dynamics, value chains, and development pathways. It therefore requires whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches capable of aligning public and private action around long-term transformation.

5. Transforming energy supply and demand requires coordinated planning across the global energy system and economy. To accelerate the transition and expand easy, affordable, and reliable clean alternatives, a wide range of policies and instruments need to be implemented in a coherent manner – from extraction, processing and consumption of fossil fuels to the transformation of end-use sectors. Strategic planning, industrial policy, robust economic diversification, technological development, innovation, and international cooperation are all part of the solution.

6. The transition will be rights-based and territorially grounded. Locally- led solutions already exist and must be recognized, strengthened, and scaled. The transition should not reproduce inequalities within or between countries, nor create new forms of extractivism or dependence. It should help economies and communities move towards value chains of higher quality and new economic models, and towards more resilient and inclusive development pathways, for more equitable, sustainable, and resilient societies.

7. Domestic action and international cooperation, as well as improving conditions to enable these, are equally indispensable to the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. Progress depends on system-wide coherence. At the heart are new or strengthened national or regional TAFF roadmaps, aligned with 1.5°C, that signal clear direction, to markets as well as domestic and international partners. This needs to be coupled with additional work on sustainable trade flows and advance green economic transformation. Pooling capacities, knowledge and resources across countries can generate significant synergies and speed-up progress.

8. Overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels and boosting green economic transformation requires addressing a complex web of domestic and international constraints that operate differently across countries. Countries willing to accelerate the transition currently face conditions that differ. For some, addressing debt burdens, high costs of capital, limited fiscal space, technological barriers and investment frameworks are essential.

Accelerated deployment of Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) support, expanded non-debt-creating finance, technology transfer and capacity building are ways to do so. Financial flows continue to be unaligned, and in most countries fossil fuel subsidies and misaligned financial incentives keep fossil fuels artificially competitive. Identifying these incentives and subsidies is necessary, for example through the publication of national inventories. Likewise, research on how to reform these is essential to advance progress towards phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.

9. Success in the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels requires action both within and beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Complementarity with UNFCCC processes and other existing governance frameworks is critical to avoid duplication. Future work following the first conference will aim to defragment efforts, and ensure alignment with existing initiatives, including the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), and the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP). Countries working together can also contribute to advancing work in related processes, including the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the UN Plastics Treaty. Progress in these areas will likewise benefit the global transition away from fossil fuels. The same goes for optimization of instruments from multilateral development banks and international financial institutions, among others. It will be equally important to address existing governance and implementation gaps through additional mechanisms, initiatives and agreements.

10. A world beyond fossil fuels is possible. Progress is already underway. Accelerating change requires catalytic forms of cooperation to match the scale of the challenge. By bringing together governments and a broad coalition of stakeholders, the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels advanced solution-oriented cooperation. With plurilateral action, grounded in multilateral consensus, we can build the practical pathways to move forward together.

The next steps in the Santa Marta process will bring this vision to life and prepare for the second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in 2027. The second conference is testament to the sustained commitment to deliver, which was evident from all participants.

Together with the next co-hosts, Tuvalu and Ireland, Colombia and the Netherlands will ensure these next steps follow the same spirit as the Santa Marta conference itself: open, inclusive, constructive. The coordination group that comprises the four co-hosts will help to strengthen connections and avoid duplication. They will connect with countries leading different alliances and initiatives that are implementing elements of the transition, and with the COP30 Activation Group ‘Transitioning away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner. With science as its anchor, the group will work to sustain momentum throughout the year, ensure complementarity with UNFCCC and other existing frameworks, and identify areas where additional action is needed. The three workstreams that were announced at the end of the conference will be launched at the end of July, bringing avenues for continued engagement, deeper analysis, and joint action.

Transitioning away from fossil fuels is complex, requiring time and careful management. It needs to ensure that communities and economies dependent on fossil fuel production and consumption can move to new economic models, while global energy access continues to expand as well. Above all, however, it is clear that decarbonizing our economic, trade and energy systems is the best path towards equitable, sustainable and resilient societies.

SOURCE: https://transitionawayconference.com/report
REPORT: https://transitionawayconference.com/s/Santa-Marta-Report.pdf