50 Nations Meet in Colombia’s Santa Marta to Plan Fossil Fuel Exit

The Santa Marta conference is testing whether 56 countries can build a fossil-fuel transition framework outside the UN system that delivered nothing on the same question at COP30 — and doing it during the worst energy-security crisis since the 1973 oil shock.

Colombia is hosting one of the most consequential climate-policy events of 2026. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the Santa Marta conference — the First International Conference for the Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels — opened April 24 with 56 confirmed countries and over 2,600 organizations representing roughly one-fifth of global fossil-fuel production and one-third of global consumption, in what organizers describe as the first major attempt to build fossil-exit governance outside the UN climate framework.

“This conference will not try to convince anyone. We are convinced that it is urgent to undertake transformation actions to reduce dependence and eliminate these fuels,” Colombian Vice-Minister of Environmental Territorial Planning Luz Dary Carmona said at the opening.

The framing is deliberate: the conference is a coalition of the willing, not a global negotiation. Outcomes will be voluntary national commitments, not treaty obligations.

Why the Santa Marta Conference Exists

The conference is the structural response to the November 2025 COP30 failure in Belém. Over 80 countries — including all of Latin America’s progressive governments — pushed for explicit fossil-exit language in the COP30 final decision document. The text was blocked by a small group of petrostates, and the final agreement did not even mention fossil fuels as the primary driver of the climate crisis.

The Colombian and Dutch governments — both having phased out coal and committed to oil-and-gas exit pathways — issued the Santa Marta call as an alternative venue. The structural innovation is procedural: outside the UN system, decisions can be made by qualified majorities of willing countries rather than blocked by single petrostate vetoes.

President Gustavo Petro’s role in driving the initiative is significant for Colombian politics. Petro has positioned Colombia as a leader of the post-fossil transition despite the country’s hydrocarbon dependence — fossil fuels and extractive industries together represented just over 38 percent of Colombian exports in 2025, according to the Asociación Nacional de Comercio Exterior. Ecopetrol remains the country’s largest company by revenue.

The ISDS Battle Inside the Conference

A coalition of over 340 civil-society organizations issued a joint declaration calling for elimination of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms — the international arbitration system that allows fossil-fuel companies to sue governments for losses from climate policy. The declaration is one of the most concrete deliverables to emerge from the conference so far.

The arithmetic: fossil-fuel and mining companies have obtained over US$87 billion in ISDS compensation awards since 1998, according to the declaration. Recent ISDS claims have explicitly targeted decarbonization measures, fracking bans, offshore drilling restrictions, and windfall-profit taxes. The chilling effect on climate policy — what activists call “regulatory freeze” — has become measurable.

The proposed remedies include cancelling or renegotiating investment treaties, coordinating between countries to facilitate collective ISDS exit, refusing to sign new agreements that include arbitration provisions, and building a multilateral treaty for an ISDS-free framework. The radicalism of the proposal — directly challenging an investor-protection regime built into hundreds of trade agreements — frames the structural debate.

Why the Iran-Hormuz Context Matters

The energy-security backdrop complicates the conference message in two directions. On one hand, Iran’s Hormuz blockade has demonstrated the geopolitical risk of fossil-fuel dependence — every country needing to import oil through chokepoints is now exposed to the kind of disruption that has driven Brent above US$100 since the conflict began.

On the other hand, the same crisis has triggered short-term capital deployment back into hydrocarbon supply. Shell’s US$13.6 billion ARC Resources acquisition Monday — the supermajor’s largest deal in a decade — explicitly cites Hormuz disruption as the driver.

Petrobras’s expanding pre-salt development continues. Argentina’s RIGI is accelerating Vicuña copper but also new oil and gas investments.

The conference must navigate this tension. Long-term decarbonization remains the structural goal.

Short-term capital is flowing back to fossil expansion because of the Iran disruption. Colombia’s own Ecopetrol continues operating.

The credibility test is whether Santa Marta can build a transition framework that survives the current geopolitical reality rather than presupposing its absence.

What This Means for Latin America

For Latin America, the Santa Marta conference reflects a regional split. Brazil under Lula and Colombia under Petro are positioning themselves as transition leaders despite hydrocarbon dependence.

Argentina under Milei has accelerated oil and gas through RIGI. Venezuela under Rodríguez has reopened to foreign capital.

Ecuador under Noboa has expanded Amazonian extraction. Mexico under Sheinbaum maintains Pemex but with declining production.

The economic stakes are substantial. Latin America’s hydrocarbon producers — Petrobras, Ecopetrol, YPF, PDVSA, Pemex — collectively represent over US$200 billion in annual revenue and substantial public budget contributions. Transition planning that does not address replacement revenue mechanisms risks fiscal disruption that delays rather than accelerates the change.

Indigenous representatives at the conference, including Marcelo Mayancha, president of Ecuador’s Shiwiar nationality, have used the platform to denounce continued Amazonian oil expansion in their territories. The frame they articulate — that transition language and extractive practice operate in parallel rather than in sequence — is uncomfortable for governments that participate in Santa Marta while permitting new drilling at home.

What This Means for Investors

For investors, the Santa Marta conference is a structural watch item rather than an immediate market mover. The non-binding nature of any output limits short-term price impact on hydrocarbon equities. The ISDS challenge, if it gains traction, would have substantial medium-term implications for sovereign-risk pricing in countries that withdraw from arbitration mechanisms.

For Brazilian and Colombian sovereign-bond watchers, the rhetorical and policy positioning of host-country governments matters at the margin. Petro’s transition rhetoric has not yet been matched by Ecopetrol production cuts.

Lula’s transition rhetoric has not been matched by Petrobras pre-salt deceleration. The gap between narrative and operational reality is the structural credibility question facing the conference.

The conference closes April 29 with a final declaration. Specific country commitments — emissions trajectories, ISDS-treaty exits, fossil-subsidy phaseouts — will be the practical measure of success.

The historical comparator is unhelpful: the 2014 Lima COP, the 2015 Paris Agreement, the 2021 Glasgow COP, and the 2025 Belém COP all produced ambitious declarations followed by limited operational follow-through. Santa Marta will be judged by whether 2027 delivers different.