Hopeful that countries can agree on a Belém “political package” by tomorrow when President Lula comes to town, Brazil’s COP30 presidency has drawn up the first draft of a text intended to form the backbone of a deal.
The “Mutirão” decision – which the summit’s hosts insist is not a cover text – delves into the four big issues that, although not formally on the agenda, have dominated the discussions in the humid Amazon city: emissions-cutting ambition, country’s climate plans, finance and trade.
The draft contains a menu of options reflecting a wide range of positions on the thorniest issues at stake, exposing the divisions between governments and the strong diplomatic push still needed to get an agreement over the line.
David Waskow, director of the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute, said each bundle of options on the key topics contains both stronger and weaker elements, and countries now face a clear choice. They can get behind “the stronger elements and really reinforce the more ambitious potential outcomes or move in a weaker direction and water down what they come away with from Belém,” he added.
Mutirão decision for COP30 seen weak on fossil fuel roadmap
On efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions, a decision could encourage countries to build on the landmark COP28 agreement and convene a roundtable aimed at supporting countries to develop “just, orderly and equitable transition roadmaps”, including on reducing dependency on fuels and stopping deforestation. That appears to refer to domestic blueprints and stops short of advocating for a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels which more than 80 countries are now calling for.
A second option, which analysts described as weaker, only invites countries to share opportunities and “success stories” on the transition towards “low carbon solutions”. There is a third option for no text.
The transition away from fossil fuels gets another mention in the section on how to respond to a shortfall in ambition in countries’ new national climate plans (NDCs) submitted this year.
Africa wants wiggle room on energy transition as funds fall short
The first option would see the creation of an annual forum to consider the UN’s official review of emission-cutting targets, known as a “synthesis report”, with the goal of “accelerating action” around the three energy-related outcomes agreed at COP28 in Dubai: tripling renewable energy capacity, doubling energy efficiency and transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems. All of those objectives are currently lagging behind.
Another option in the draft Mutirão” decision would instead see the establishment of a “Global Implementation Accelerator”, a voluntary initiative overseen by this year’s and next year’s COP presidencies to accelerate the implementation of commitments and support countries in turning NDC promises into action.
Under a third option, the COP30 and COP31 presidencies would coordinate the creation of a “Belem Roadmap to 1.5”, identifying ways to put the world back on track towards reaching the most ambitious temperature goal of the Paris Accord – which the UN has conceded will inevitably be breached, at least temporarily. The presidencies would produce a report summarising their work by COP31 next November.
Cosima Cassel, programme lead at UK think-tank E3G, said the current options should not be mutually exclusive and a strong outcome would include a combination of an annual stocktake on filling the ambition gap and a roadmap to wean the world off fossil fuels.
“For that to happen, the presidency will need to work hard to ensure the finance and adaptation package is robust enough to support enhanced NDCs,” she added.
Finance remains wide open, adaptation in focus
On adaptation finance, the draft text includes a proposal to triple the support provided by wealthy nations to help developing countries strengthen their resilience to climate impacts.
The language could be interpreted in two ways: either as a new standalone target of delivering an additional $120 billion per year by 2030, as proposed by the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, or as a sub-target within the broader £300 billion annual climate-finance goal agreed last year – something likely to be more acceptable to developed countries with shrinking aid budgets.
There is also a weaker option that only goes as far as acknowledging the need to “dramatically scale up adaptation finance” and provide public and grant-based resources that do not come with strings attached or costly repayments.
After climate memo row, Gates gives $1.4bn to help farmers cope with a hotter world
On wider finance issues, the document features a sweep of options. There is the possibility of creating a three-year work programme and “legally-binding plan” on the implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which requires rich nations to stump up cash for climate action in the developing world. That is something most developing countries have been calling for, but is highly unlikely to fly with industrialised nations.
Another option would see countries draw up four different roadmaps, including one aimed at building on the recommendations in the recently published Baku to Belém Roadmap, which charted a path to mobilise $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries by 2035.
There is also an option for no text on finance.
Finding ways to talk about trade and climate
Proposals to tackle concerns over trade also feature prominently for the first time in a draft COP decision, after emerging economies like China and India led a pushback against climate-related mechanisms like the EU’s carbon border adjustment.
Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the final deal would need to include both a political message calling for an “open, free and fair” trading environment and the definition of a process with next steps to achieve that.
The draft includes a variety of options on both fronts. On the implementation front, the text suggests that the COP30 and COP31 presidencies could organise workshops examining the links between trade and climate. It also raises the option of launching a new dialogue or platform at next year’s mid-year session in Bonn and at COP31 to further discuss trade-related issues.
Another alternative is for a UN summit and an annual dialogue “on the importance of an open and supportive international economic system in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication”.
Li added that trade is expected to be one of the “pillar stones” of the COP30 outcome, but discussions are still very “open-ended” at this stage, and a lot more work needs to be done to find compromises over the coming days.
COP31 – Australia bid losing steam?
After a year-long standoff between Turkey and Australia bidding for the hosting rights for next year’s COP31, Aussie prime minister Anthony Albanese showed the first signs of backing down today, saying that a stalemate would “not send a good signal”.
Speaking at an event in Perth, Albanese said “if Turkey is chosen, we wouldn’t seek to veto that”, The Guardian reported.
COP’s host rotates every year by region, with next year belonging to the group of “West Europe and Others” – which includes Australia and Turkey. If no agreement is reached by the group, the conference would be held in Bonn, at UN Climate Change headquarters, under the standing Brazilian presidency.
Albanese said defaulting the venue to Bonn would send the wrong signal “about the unity that’s needed for the world to act on climate”. Environment minister Chris Bowen has said he wants to bring world leaders to Adelaide, in collaboration with Pacific countries.
A majority of voting countries in the group are supporting Australia’s bid, but Turkey has not withdrawn its bid with just a few days left until the end of COP30 – the deadline for choosing the next host city. COP32’s host, on the other hand, was settled last week, with Ethiopia winning the bid to host the 2027 conference in its capital Addis Ababa.
Pope keeps faith in 1.5C
The United Nations may have accepted that overshooting 1.5C of warming – at least temporarily – is inevitable – but God’s representative on Earth didn’t get the memo.
The new pope, Leo XIV, sent a video message to cardinals from the Global South gathered at the Amazonian Museum in Belém on Monday evening, saying “there is still time to keep the rise in global temperature below 1.5°C” although, he warned, “the window is closing.”
“As stewards of God’s creation, we are called to act swiftly, with faith and prophecy, to protect the gift he entrusted to us,” he said, reading from a sheet of paper in front of a portrait of the Vatican.
And he defended the 10-year-old Paris Agreement, saying it has ”driven real progress and remains our strongest tool for protecting people and the planet.” “It is not the Agreement that is failing – we are failing in our response,” he said. In particular, the American Pope pointed to “the political will of some.”
“We walk alongside scientists, leaders and pastors of every nation and creed. We are guardians of creation, not rivals for its spoils. Let us send a clear global signal together: nations standing in unwavering solidarity behind the Paris Agreement and behind climate cooperation,” he emphasised.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell welcomed the message, adding that the Pope’s words “challenge us to keep choosing hope and action, honouring our shared humanity and standing with communities all around the world already crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat”.
War’s carbon footprint grows but stays off the books
During the Leaders’ Summit that happened just before COP, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva referred to ongoing conflicts around the world, saying that “spending twice as much on weapons as we do on climate action is paving the way for climate apocalypse”. “There will be no energy security in a world at war,” he added.
But COP30’s schedule doesn’t appear to reflect his concerns, as there’s no mention of any peace initiative on the official schedule and no thematic day for peace, a marked difference from COP28 and COP29, when Baku called for a global truce for the summit’s duration. It didn’t produce the desired result.
And yet discussions about militarism and what it is costing the planet have not been absent from the COP30 halls. The first week saw the publication of ‘Accounting for the uncounted: The global climate impact of military activities’, an analysis by a group of civil society organisations and the University of Warwick that showed how global armed forces produce 5.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
If counted as a country, they would be the fourth-biggest emitter, topped only by the US, China and India – and producing more emissions than the continent of Africa.
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COP30 Bulletin Day 5: COP30 could greenlight work on a fossil fuel transition roadmap
At the climate talks in Belém, governments are considering whether to launch a process to craft a roadmap and how that might look -
COP30 Bulletin Day 6: First week ends with a colourful march and much work left to do
UN climate chief Simon Stiell tells governments “to give a little to get a lot”, as many thorny issues remain for ministers to resolve next week -
COP30 Bulletin Day 7: Brazil sets out options to agree a Belém package
The COP30 presidency signposts how governments could land a political decision covering climate finance, trade measures and the emissions cuts needed to limit warming to 1.5C
Ellie Kinney, senior climate advocacy officer with the Conflict and Environment Observatory (CEOBS), one of the organisations behind the report, explained that, while the Paris Agreement made military emissions reporting voluntary, few countries fully comply.
China and the US, the world’s two biggest military spenders, have ceased their partial reporting on them altogether: the US has not sent its annual report to UNFCCC this year, and China said its military emissions are “not occurring”.
Yet the research findings are alarming: the Russia-Ukraine conflict has produced 237 million tonnes of CO₂ over three years, while the Gaza conflict has already surpassed the combined annual emissions of Costa Rica and Estonia. The Afghanistan war was responsible for a staggering 400 million tonnes CO₂, and the EU’s rearmament could lock in 200 million tonnes of CO₂ mainly through the production and transportation of weapons, an activity that uses steel and aluminium, which are very carbon-intensive to produce.
Ana Toni, COP30’s CEO, said back in March that countries that increase their military budgets should also increase their climate spending or face more wars in the future. “Wars come and go. Unfortunately, climate change is there for a long time,” she added.
The European Parliament used its annual COP resolution this year to call on the defence sector to help tackle climate change by cutting its emissions intensity and urged EU decision-makers to formulate a proposal to increase the transparency of military emissions accounting to the UNFCCC.
Campaigners want military emissions reporting to be mandatory, especially after 2024 – the first calendar year to surpass the 1.5C temperature goal and, with 56 wars involving 92 nations, the year with the highest number of active conflicts since WWII.
“We can’t have this future where defence comes at the cost of climate action,” Kinney of CEOBS said. “Military security is not the only security – climate action is part of our collective security, too.”
The post COP30 Bulletin Day 8: Draft decision draws battle lines on fossil fuel transition, finance and trade appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP30 Bulletin Day 8: Draft decision draws battle lines on fossil fuel transition, finance and trade
Ellen Davies is head of programmes at the African Climate Foundation and is based in Kenya. Wole Hammond is programme officer for adaptation and resilience at the foundation, based in Nigeria.
For generations, African communities have lived on the frontlines of climate disruption, managing erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts and the slow erosion of their livelihoods, which depend on predictable seasons.
When the rains failed across Southern Africa in 2024, it was but the latest chapter of a crisis already long underway. During that season, maize crop failures of 40-80% devastated farming communities in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, where roughly 70% of people depend on rain-fed agriculture. Governments already stretched by debt were forced to raid development budgets, trading long-term growth for emergency relief.
Then came the floods. In early 2026, parts of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa received over a year’s worth of rain in days. More than 2 million people were affected. In East Africa, drought has displaced nearly 62,000 people in Somalia this year alone, with nearly one in four Somalis now facing acute food insecurity.
This is what climate change looks like on the ground – not parts per million or diplomatic jargon, but whether a school stays open after floods cut off the road, whether a clinic can function in extreme heat, whether a country can still invest in its future when every year brings another disaster bill.
As Nigeria rails at loss and damage “mirage”, fund boss assures money is coming
Africa as a continent contributes the least to global emissions yet bears a disproportionate share of the consequences. Nine of the ten countries most vulnerable to climate change are African. As livelihoods collapse and rural economies fail, migration pressures will intensify, driven by climate change intersecting with poverty, conflict and constrained opportunity.
Chronic under-funding
Europe is only now beginning to experience, in more limited form, what African communities have navigated for decades with far less fiscal space, thinner insurance coverage and fewer resources for recovery. With El Niño conditions confirmed and a “super” version of the naturally occurring weather pattern possible later this year, the pressure is set to intensify further.
In Africa, climate action is fundamentally a development challenge where adaptation and mitigation must go hand in hand. Building a solar grid and flood-proofing the road that serves it are not separate agendas. Yet for too long, the global climate conversation has prioritised mitigation while leaving adaptation – the work of protecting lives, livelihoods and economies in a changing climate – chronically under-funded.
The result is three compounding gaps. A visibility gap: much of Africa’s adaptation work remains under-documented and under-recognised in global climate narratives. A financing gap: capital does not flow at the scale or speed required to the people and institutions best placed to use it. And a decision-making gap: too many solutions are still designed elsewhere and imported into African contexts, rather than backing African-led platforms to scale what is already working.
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Solutions ready for finance
The solutions exist. Rwanda’s green investment fund has mobilised climate finance at national scale through its own systems. Egypt’s Nexus of Water, Food and Energy programme has shown how integrated planning can stretch limited resources across interdependent systems.
Zambia’s Presidential Irrigation Initiative is building climate-resilient food production from the ground up. In Pata, Senegal, a solar irrigation project has unlocked agricultural production and created jobs, demonstrating how integrated investments in water, energy and livelihoods can deliver resilience and development gains simultaneously.
In South Africa, the African Climate Foundation’s work with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) is supporting district municipalities to assess their climate risks and develop fit-for-purpose Climate Action Plans, building adaptation capacity where it is needed most – at the local level.
These are not pilot projects waiting to be validated. They are working systems waiting for investment.
Closing the gaps requires a decisive shift in posture from global finance, philanthropy and development institutions. It means backing country-led platforms that can prepare, aggregate and finance adaptation projects. It means investing in place-based initiatives grounded in local knowledge.
French court rules Total must revise climate plan to account for all emissions
It means fostering intra- and inter-continental collaboration, so that lessons from Kigali inform decisions in Nairobi and innovations in Lagos reach communities in Dakar. And it means treating adaptation as core economic infrastructure, not charitable relief.
Invest now for future gains
The economic case is clear. Every dollar invested in climate adaptation returns an estimated four dollars in benefits on average – and up to five in the poorest economies. Under-investment in African adaptation is as economically irrational as it is morally unjust.
The world depends on Africa’s food systems, its young workforce – the majority of the continent’s population is under 25 – and its minerals. Several African countries supply a substantial share of the copper, cobalt and other critical materials underpinning the global clean energy transition.
Drought in Zambia has already shown how climate stress can disrupt hydropower, electricity supply and mining output. A transition that depends on African minerals cannot afford to ignore African climate resilience.
The world can continue to under-fund adaptation and pay repeatedly for emergencies, instability and lost development. Or it can invest now in the people, institutions and systems already doing the work on the ground in Africa, not in solutions imported from elsewhere.
Africa has the agency, the knowledge and the platforms. What it needs is the finance to match. A super El Niño will not wait for consensus to form. Neither, frankly, should we.
The post Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions appeared first on Climate Home News.
Climate adaptation in Africa needs investment, not imported solutions
Climate Change
DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Record Europe heat
HOTTEST EVER: The UK broke its temperature record for June twice this week, while France recorded its hottest day ever two days in a row, reported the Guardian. The Times reported that temperatures reached 36.7C in Somerset on Thursday, as the “London Ambulance Service had its busiest-ever day for life-threatening emergencies”.
FRANCE FRYING: French newspaper Libération said that temperatures reached as high as 44.3C in the south-western commune of Pissos on Wednesday. Spain also recorded its highest daily average temperature for June, said BBC News. On Thursday, Switzerland also had its hottest June day, when temperatures reached 37C in four locations, reported SwissInfo.
CLIMATE LINK: CNN covered a rapid analysis from the World Weather Attribution service finding that fossil-fuelled climate change has made this heatwave the most severe and widespread in Europe’s history. Carbon Brief covered the broken heat records, explaining the influence of climate change.
‘Electrifying’ London talks
‘LONDON COOKING’: In a sweltering, packed-out event at London climate action week, UN chief António Guterres quipped that “London is not just calling, it’s cooking”, reported Edie. Guterres also used his address to release a “global call to action on methane” and to call on artificial intelligence companies to reveal their environmental impact and source their power solely from renewables by 2030, said the publication.
‘ELECTRIFY NOW’: Elsewhere, dozens of governments, led by the EU and the UK, committed to throwing “their political weight” behind a rapid electrification of the world’s economy, according to Climate Home News. A high-level summit in London’s Mansion House saw energy ministers and business leaders, joined by Guterres, in “calling for faster action to curb demand for oil, coal and gas by powering homes, industry and transport with clean electricity”.
FOSSIL TRANSITION: At the same event, ministers from Colombia and the Netherlands, the co-hosts of the world’s first summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April, unveiled a report on their key takeaways. It comes after the current Colombian government has been ousted by a presidential election defeat to a fossil-fuel-supporting Trump ally. Carbon Brief examined what this could mean for the world’s energy transition.
Around the world
- UK TARGET: The UK parliament has approved its “seventh carbon budget”, aimed at cutting emissions 87% below 1990 levels by 2040.
- TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY: A French court has ordered oil-and-gas giant TotalEnergies to account for the emissions from the use of its products, following a case brought by a climate NGO, reported Le Monde.
- METHANE RULES: The US, Qatar and other major energy exporters have urged the EU to “rewrite planned methane emissions” rules for oil-and-gas imports, saying that the policy could disrupt fuel supplies to Europe, according to Reuters.
- CHINA MESSAGE: China’s special envoy for climate change, Liu Zhenmin, said at the World Economic Forum that energy shortages triggered by the Iran war should be a “lesson to countries to accelerate their energy transitions”, reported Bloomberg.
- US WEBSITE REVIVED: Former US government workers have “recreated a valuable climate-science website” shut down by the Trump administration last year, said the New York Times.
6,600 animals
The number of livestock that perished in transport during heat in England and Wales from June to August 2025, double the number killed the year before, reported Carbon Brief.
Latest climate research
- Some world regions are experiencing up to 50 additional heat stress days annually, when compared to 1950 | Nature Climate Change
- Projections of national land-use emissions to 2100 suggest the strongest “carbon sinks” will be in China and Indonesia, whereas Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo will “dominate global sources” | Nature
- Most carbon-offset projects relying on “avoided deforestation” have “mixed, negligible or negative impacts relative to control areas” | Nature Climate Change
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The UK government’s official climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), has released its latest progress report, emphasising that faster electrification is the best way to secure lower energy bills and stronger energy security. Electrification has shot up the agenda in recent months, with the COP31 presidency calling for countries to back a global goal for 35% of “final” energy to come from electricity by 2035. The text of the CCC’s latest report uses the word “electrification” far more often than previous editions, as shown in the figure above. See Carbon Brief’s in-depth breakdown of the CCC’s latest advice.
Spotlight
Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’
Carbon Brief explains how it built a major new database of climate science research and unveils a new ranking of the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in climate science.
This week, Carbon Brief launched Project Cosmos – the world’s largest and most complete database of climate change research.
The database features more than 1.8m academic papers, books and reports, capturing the vast body of human knowledge about climate change that has accumulated over more than a century of academic study.
The climate science “universe” is based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which are recognised as the world’s most authoritative summaries of the latest climate science.
Since its first report was published in 1990, humanity’s knowledge about human-caused climate change has ballooned. The IPCC has published six sets of reports in total – each one longer than the last.
In total, IPCC reports reference more than 100,000 other papers, books and reports. This is the core of our climate science universe. Carbon Brief then built on this core, by looking at four other sources of data. Read more about how the Cosmos database was created here.
Every single publication in the Cosmos database is linked to at least one other through references. Visualising these links reveals a “galaxy” of references.
In the image above, each colour and cluster reveals different topics and densities of research. Explore the galaxy in an interactive map.
Cosmos 500
As part of an initial wave of preliminary analysis to demonstrate the scope of the Project Cosmos database, Carbon Brief has ranked the 500 most highly cited publications, authors and institutions in the database.
The most highly cited climate scientist is Prof Philippe Ciais, who has spent almost four decades researching the planet’s carbon cycle – and the ways in which humans have been impacting its balance. Carbon Brief recently interviewed Ciais in Paris.
The US tops the tables for the most highly cited authors and institutions. Almost half of the 500 most highly-cited authors are from US institutions. This raises particular concerns for the future of climate science, as US climate scientists and institutions are coming under attack under the Trump administration.
Experts from global south countries account for only 4% of all authors in the Cosmos 500. China stands out as the most highly-cited global south country. Meanwhile, only 10% of authors in the Cosmos 500 are women.
There are many possibilities for future avenues of research using the Cosmos database. Over time, the database could be used to reveal, for example, how interest in different areas of climate science has changed over time, plus identify potential knowledge gaps and, thus, opportunities for future research.
Carbon Brief invites researchers – including academics, journalists and analysts – to submit their own proposals for co-authored studies, literature reviews and analytical projects. Proposals should be sent to cosmos AT carbonbrief DOT org.
This spotlight first appeared in Cited, Carbon Brief’s new fortnightly newsletter focused on climate research. Sign up for free.
Watch, read, listen
‘DOOMSDAY CULT’: OpenDemocracy reported on a “religious cult” spreading climate misinformation in “parliaments” and at “COP summits”.
‘WEDGES’ EXAMINED: ProPublica and Drilled released an investigation into how oil executives worked to influence a climate research paper from Princeton University known as “wedges”.
‘1976 to 2056’: A 30-minute YouTube video from the Met Office had climate scientists explaining how current UK temperatures compare to the infamous 1976 heatwave, and how extremes could worsen by 2056.
Coming up
- 29-30 June: Hamburg sustainability conference, Hamburg, Germany
- 29-30 June: Seventh global conference on climate and sustainable development goals synergies, Bangkok, Thailand
- 29-30 June: 11th annual global conference on energy efficiency, Montreal, Canada
Pick of the jobs
- Drilled, series editor | Salary: $4,000 a month (six-month contract). Location: US
- Met Office, ocean climate science manager | Salary: £54,515-£58,582. Location: Exeter, UK
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, research officer (climate science and law) | Salary: £43,277-£55,497. Location: London
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 26 June 2026: Heat records broken across Europe | London climate action week | Introducing ‘Project Cosmos’ appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Over the last four years, Colombia has emerged as one of the most vocal advocates for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
Under the leadership of leftist politician and economist Gustavo Petro, it became the first major oil-and-gas producer to commit to halting all new fossil-fuel expansion.
In April, the nation hosted a first-of-its-kind meeting of countries on transitioning away from fossil fuels, alongside the Netherlands, in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta.
The meeting concluded with a promise for a new “Santa Marta process” spearheaded by Colombia and the Netherlands, a movement of countries that would continue to push for a transition away from fossil fuels at home – and at international climate talks.
But on 21 June, an ally of Petro suffered defeat in a presidential election runoff against Abelardo de la Espriella, a hard-right populist and favourite of US president Donald Trump, who has pledged to boost oil production and pursue “fracking to the max”.
Below, Carbon Brief examines what the loss could mean for Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels, as well as international efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas, including at the COP31 climate summit in Turkey in November.
- How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
- How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
- How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
How could the election defeat change Colombia’s stance on fossil fuels?
In 2022, Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing president in recent history.
Under his leadership, Colombia became the first major oil producer and exporter to halt all new fossil-fuel expansion, boosted renewable energy and saw a sustained decline in deforestation.
At the COP28 summit in 2023, Petro announced that Colombia would become the first major oil exporter to sign the fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty, a pact to legally control fossil-fuel production and use.
Successive Colombian environment ministers became among the most vocal supporters of transitioning away from fossil fuels at UN climate talks.
This included former minister Susana Muhamad, a political scientist and environmentalist who stepped in to lead the most recent UN biodiversity summit in 2024 after original host Turkey was forced to withdraw following earthquakes.
She was succeeded by Irene Vélez Torres, a former academic who led calls for a “fossil-fuel roadmap” to be part of the formal outcome at the COP30 summit in 2025.
At the sidelines of COP30, Vélez Torres and Netherlands climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven announced plans to co-host a first-of-its-kind summit on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Colombia in April 2026.
(In the end, countries failed to agree to a formally negotiated “fossil-fuel roadmap” at COP30. However, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to bring forward a voluntary roadmap instead, informed by the Santa Marta summit.)
Some 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – participated in the event, with officials describing it as “refreshing”, “highly successful” and “groundbreaking”, according to Carbon Brief’s reporting from Colombia.
The meeting concluded with a range of outcomes, including a second fossil-fuel transition summit to be co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland in 2027.
In stark contrast to Petro’s government, new hard-right populist president Abelardo de la Espriella has promised to quickly boost new fossil-fuel and mining projects, including by “fracking to the max”.
De la Espriella has also promised to build 10 “mega prisons” inside Colombia’s Amazon rainforest.
He has not yet commented on whether he will withdraw Colombia from Santa Marta’s “coalition of the willing”.
How could it affect international efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
Just two days after the Colombian government’s election defeat, environment minister Vélez Torres took to the stage at London climate action week, alongside Netherlands climate minister van Veldhoven, to present a report on key takeaways from the Santa Marta summit.
The report, written before the election loss, speaks of an ongoing “Santa Marta process” to accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels. It says that this will be coordinated by Colombia and the Netherlands, along with the two appointed co-hosts of the second conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, Tuvalu and Ireland.
Acknowledging that this was likely to be one of her last addresses as Colombia’s environment minister, Vélez Torres told the audience that, going forward, the Santa Marta process must be resilient to “political setbacks”.
At the sidelines of the event, Vélez Torres told Carbon Brief that the work her government has done “cannot be erased”, despite a change in power. She said:
“Right now, we are facing the dark nights, this will really shift the politics in terms of energy position and environmental protection. But we are certain that our legacy will continue. It goes beyond governments.”
Dutch minister van Veldhoven told Carbon Brief that the plan for the “Santa Marta process” is to hold fossil-fuel transition summits in a different country every year, with two new co-hosts each time. This could help weather political shocks, she said:
“We know that every couple of years there will be elections. That is why [we have] the idea of rotating presidencies and chairmanships…while we make sure we make use of existing secretariats and organisations that are not subject to political changes every couple of years.
“In that combination, we hope to create a historic legacy and continue to drive the process forward, but also [create space for] a new energy from two new countries every year that bring their own perspective and their own dynamic.”
Although new countries could drive the process forward without Colombia, there are few major oil producers that have shown the same level of commitment to transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Ana Toni, an economist and CEO of the COP30 summit in Brazil, told Carbon Brief at London climate action week that the world will “miss the leadership of Colombia”, but added:
“Not one country will stop this movement. All countries need to chip in. There isn’t one leader for this topic. Everybody needs to join forces.”
How could efforts to transition away from fossil fuels feature at COP31?
At London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands presented their Santa Marta report to the Brazilian COP30 presidency.
The COP30 presidency is due to release a voluntary international “fossil-fuel roadmap” ahead of COP31 in Turkey in November, which it has promised will be informed by the takeaways from Santa Marta.
Speaking at the sidelines of London climate action week, Colombia and the Netherlands added that they have had “constructive” conversations with the COP31 co-presidencies, Australia and Turkey, about how to incorporate the discussions from Santa Marta.
Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres told a small group of journalists:
“We had this very interesting conversation with COP31 and they were clearly open to suggestions about what is needed in the discussion in Turkey, and we were explicit about the need to engage with the phasing out of fossil fuels.”
However, both Colombia and the Netherlands added that they were unsure of how this might work in practice.
When asked about whether the Santa Marta discussions could be incorporated into formal COP texts, they were keen to emphasise that all the conversations in Colombia were specifically not negotiations.
They added that they were unsure of whether the group of 57 countries that gathered in Santa Marta would appear as a collective at press conferences or events at the COP31 summit.
The post Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What change of power in Colombia could mean for world’s fossil-fuel transition
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Greenhouse Gases11 months ago
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Renewable Energy8 months agoSending Progressive Philanthropist George Soros to Prison?
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Climate Change2 years ago
Bill Discounting Climate Change in Florida’s Energy Policy Awaits DeSantis’ Approval
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Carbon Footprint2 years agoUS SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules Spur Renewed Interest in Carbon Credits
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