Fifty-five countries is a lot of countries. Especially given that their gathering next week is an oblique middle finger to the lumbering madman currently deranging the world with his shambolic wars and “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

Ministers and diplomats from all those countries are about to convene on the Caribbean coast of Colombia for what’s billed as the “First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.” The representatives of nation states will be joined by subnational governments and other stakeholders and their meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia could hardly have sharper timing.

The governments of Colombia and The Netherlands had actually been planning this conference before Donald Trump gave the world a crash course on the dangers of relying on fossil fuels. The meeting was formally announced at last year’s UN climate negotiations, where a group of petrostates vetoed proposals for a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels. The petrostates went further, vetoing any mention whatsoever of “fossil fuels” from the global agreement.

It is a truly Kafkaesque situation. The global summit designed to tackle climate breakdown is unable to name its primary cause. Eighty-five countries were openly calling for a roadmap off fossil fuels and others would surely have supported the move. But a small cabal of fossil fuel extracting countries have been able to stymie the rest using procedural rules.

And so, Colombia and The Netherlands announced they would be co-hosting an international process for the phase out of fossil fuels. It is being run by invitation only and they have welcomed subnational governments as well, such as California, the fourth largest economy in the world. 

The organizing actually goes back even further. It originates with Colombia, which has been putting the rich petrostates to shame. Colombia is, itself, a significant fossil fuel producer — the fifth-largest coal exporter in the world. It is the largest coal exporter and fourth biggest oil exporter in the Americas. But Colombia has voluntarily pledged to halt licences for new fossil fuel exploration and create a “fossil-free” Amazon. It was the first major producer to join the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative which aims to enable countries to coordinate in phasing out the main source of climate pollution.

“Between fossil capital and life, we choose the side of life,” said President Gustavo Petro when he announced that Colombia would be joining the Fossil Fuel Treaty initiative.

Other countries in that initiative have been key to building momentum as well. The Pacific Islands states have been organizing for decades, driven by the threat to their very existence. Vanuatu — one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world — led the successful drive to secure an International Court of Justice finding that nations have legal obligations to prevent climate change. 

Vanuatu and other island nations have been pulling together well-intentioned countries in the lead up to the Santa Marta conference. Most of the attendees will come from the Global South. But rich countries are signing on as well. The UK is on board. The European Union, Germany, France, Spain and other European nations have confirmed. 

And there are surprising names on the list. Australia, for instance. Australia is a major player in gas and coal but Australians have been rolling out solar power incredibly quickly, and now have the highest per capita solar uptake in the world. The fossil fuel shock from the war on Iran has caused serious reevaluation about the country’s future in fossil fuels.

This week, Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen told reporters: “In all my discussions with my international colleagues … there isn’t one country in the world that said: ‘You know what this fuel crisis reminds us? We need more fossil fuels.’ That conversation is not being had anywhere around the world. In fact, countries around the world are saying this underpins and underlines the need to keep going with things like electrification and renewable energy.”

Bowen must not have been talking with his colleagues here in North America. But the reckoning he was underlining is sweeping across the rest of the world. Vietnam (another country heading to the Santa Marta conference) is making a U-turn on LNG. The country’s largest conglomerate, Vingroup, has asked the government to cancel its US $6.8 billion LNG-to-power project and is proposing instead to build an even bigger project — wind and solar tied to battery storage. Asia, in general, is “now rapidly losing faith in the super-chilled fuel,” reports Bloomberg News.

The French government just announced measures to accelerate fossil-free electrification including a ban on installing gas furnaces, the installation of one million heat pumps per year, a clever plan to electrify trades and business vehicles (and cargo bikes!) while phasing out fossil gas across 100 regions of the country. 

One thing that you don’t hear these days, even from the oil and gas boosters, is the old argument that restricting fossil fuel supply is no way to accelerate decarbonization. Trump has certainly put that canard to rest. 

The thinktank Ember just took a fresh look back at the twin oil shocks of the 1970s, demonstrating how the two big fossil fuel shocks we’ve already had in the 2020s are poised to speed up the electric age — the 1970s oil crises caused long lasting structural changes but now “there are scalable, cost-competitive alternatives. Solar, wind, batteries, EVs and other electrotech offer a permanent route out of fossil dependence.”

But shocks are not just lines on a chart. The twin fossil fuel shocks of this decade were precipitated by death, war and widespread suffering. The official ambition of the Santa Marta conference holds out an alternative, more civilized route: that we can get off dirty fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner.”

"This is the moment to be honest about the challenges involved in transitioning away from fossil fuels,” says Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s minister of environment and sustainable development. “No one is saying that it is easy. But if we don't face the problems, we cannot build the solutions.”

© National Observer