Colombia convenes climate ‘coalition of the willing’ to break global fossil fuel deadlock

Key points

• Everybody knows fossil fuels cause climate breakdown, but until recently, mention of them was all but erased from the annual UN climate summits.
• Last year, two weeks of discussions ended without fossil fuels being mentioned in the final outcome.
• Frustration with those talks led a small developing country with a large fossil fuel sector – Colombia, the largest coal and fourth biggest oil exporter in the Americas – to rewrite the rules.
• With co-convener the Netherlands, and support from more than 50 countries, Colombia will host a groundbreaking new global conference this month to begin the long-awaited “transition away from fossil fuels”.
• Now, with nations embroiled in another oil-inflected war and fuel prices soaring worldwide as a consequence, the conference in Santa Marta on 28 and 29 April looks more prescient than ever.