Two years after governments agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, a series of conferences and consultations in 2026 will move the conversation on to how the transition should be carried out in a fair and orderly way, according to those leading key international processes.
On Thursday, Climate Home News hosted an event with former German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan, the Brazilian COP30 presidency’s chief strategy officer Tulio Andrade, Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative director Alex Rafalowicz and Natural Resource Governance Institute programme director Erica Westenberg.
The speakers discussed the first international conference on a just transition away from fossil fuels – taking place in the Colombian city of Santa Marta on April 28-29 – and the announcement at COP30 that the Brazilian presidency should consult on and draw up a global roadmap away from fossil fuels.
Morgan, Andrade and Rafalowicz said these were opportunities for many different political, economic and social groups – ranging from Indigenous Peoples and diplomats to those involved in finance and infrastructure – to get involved in designing the transition away from fossil fuels.
Andrade did not give details on the roadmap’s timeline, but said it would reflect that shifting off fossil fuels is not just a “climate imperative but actually something that is going to determine planning and stability from a much wider perspective that goes from financial stability, from social stability, from economic stability”.
He added that planning is needed to transition workers and to avoid disruption as the financial systems of fossil fuel-exporting countries are “still reliant on the legacy of petrodollars and the liquidity they gave”. Rafalowicz noted that price stability for consumers and access to energy for those without it are other important issues to address.
Morgan said governments could put the COP30 presidency’s promised roadmap on the official agenda for the mid-year climate talks in Bonn in June or at COP31 in November. She added that financial institutions and governments should draw up their own roadmaps for moving away from fossil fuels because “a roadmap is a course, it’s a process, it’s a multifaceted thing – it’s not just one single roadmap”.
Santa Marta conference
Rafalowicz, whose campaign group is supporting the Colombian and Dutch governments in organising the Santa Marta conference, said it would be a venue for participants to discuss the enabling conditions needed for phasing down fossil fuel production and use. The governments of Pacific island nations Tuvalu and Vanuatu have offered to hold a follow-up conference, he added.
Alongside the official conference, there will be events run by civil society around Santa Marta’s University of Magdalena, he said. The public university has a long history of exploring the challenge in question because the province of Magdalena is a major fossil fuel producer, he said. There’s also “a very strong local Indigenous population that has a lot of experience with both the harms of fossil fuel extraction, but also trying to manage the transition to the new economy”.
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Rafalowicz added that the event’s organisers intend to produce a chair’s summary which can feed back into the official UN climate talks. At COP30, the Brazilian presidency officially welcomed the conference and Andrade told the webinar its conclusions should be “integrated” into COP discussions.
The Brazilian official said that a “Global Implementation Accelerator” (GIA) agreed at COP30 should aim for positive tipping points in climate action as “perhaps the only way” that governments can limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Currently scientists expect that limit to be breached on a long-term basis by the end of the decade but say temperatures can be brought back down below it again.
Andrade said the GIA could focus on high-impact measures that can serve as an “emergency brake” on global warming like cutting emissions of methane and non-carbon dioxide gases, ecosystem restoration, early warning for climate disasters and building state capacities.
High-carbon exports harm sovereignty
Speaking in Spanish on a separate webinar on Thursday, Colombia‘s Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development Irene Vélez Torres said her government is trying to replace industries that extract natural resources with productive industries based on “life”, like tourism.
She said Colombia’s strategy was “very different from Venezuela” and partly motivated by what she called Venezuela’s “mistake” in the 2000s of not acting to curb extractivism and dependence on fossil fuels.
“Part of the struggle for sovereignty in the south of the [American] continent has to do with overcoming extractivism,” she said. “We are more sovereign if we are less dependent on exports that are carbon-intensive.”
The post Roadmaps and Colombia conference aim to shift fossil fuel transition into higher gear appeared first on Climate Home News.
Roadmaps and Colombia conference aim to shift fossil fuel transition into higher gear
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
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A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
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Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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