Professor Elisa Morgera is the UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights.
In the global fight against catastrophic, human-induced climate change, diplomacy plays a vital role.
Historic initiatives like the Paris Agreement and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage were the consequence of tireless, coordinated international efforts of states, civil society and scientists. The role of COP, and other summits like it, remains key. However, they are coming under increasing pressure.
Last year the climate COP30 was unable to take a decision on fossil fuels, despite calls from over 80 states, as well as children and youth, medical professionals, Indigenous peoples and climate justice movements. A landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions was put on ice and global talks to develop a much-needed treaty to end plastic pollution were stalled by a few states who wish to avoid even mentioning fossil fuels in international negotiations.
In these instances, the process of building consensus was hijacked by actors whose priorities lie in the continued exploration and production of fossil fuels, magnifying the views of a handful of powerful states at the expense of all others.
In recent months, illegal aggressions in Venezuela and Iran, armed conflicts, political turbulence and economic instability have conspired to make international cooperation harder. At the same time, the impact our reliance on fossil fuels and petrochemical fertilisers has on the cost of living, energy and food insecurity has been laid bare.
Against this backdrop, a new idea was born at COP30: the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which the Colombian government is co-hosting with the Netherlands in Santa Marta this week.
Inclusion and implementation
It represents the possibility of a new kind of multilateral forum: one that foregrounds the voices of those most impacted by the climate crisis and is relentlessly focused on implementation. It is only open to states that wish to make progress and discuss how – not if – to move away from fossil fuel dependency. And it is set to draw on the insights of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and peasants, civil society, cities and academics, women and youth, who are often left out of international negotiating rooms.
The talks centre on how to ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is also a just one: a transition that protects workers, communities and the environment, respects human rights and builds public legitimacy, rather than imposing new costs on those least responsible for the crisis.
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The conference is also unpacking how international cooperation must work for countries and communities facing fiscal dependence, debt burdens and limited implementation capacity. It aims to identify the financial and technological support required from the Global North to allow other countries to leapfrog into sustainable renewables-based economies.
In addition, it will seek to address the harmful international legal barriers – such as the thousands of international investment agreements which include investor–state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions – that allow foreign corporations to sue states for measures adopted in the public interest.
Solutions that tackle injustice
These are complex, but necessary conversations to be had for all governments. Most international fora are being used to “avoid the conversation”. We have many of the solutions, but we need to ensure they’re implemented in ways that benefit all countries and sectors of society, not just a few.
Santa Marta aims to strengthen a “coalition” of ambitious states, who are responsive to the voices of those most affected by climate change. It also aims to mobilise scientists, lawyers, economists, policy and energy experts, and the medical community to support states, as well as cities and citizen initiatives to pilot promising approaches around the world. Through a deeply inclusive and participatory approach, at every level, Santa Marta can pave the way towards solutions that are co-developed and respond directly to what’s needed on the ground.
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This will be key for achieving a just transition. Many countries, especially in the Global South, are not held back by a lack of ambition, but by structural barriers: debt, high borrowing costs and international rules that still reward continued fossil fuel extraction over managed decline at the expense of people’s health and economic well-being.
Santa Marta comes at a critical moment: environmentally, morally, economically but also legally.
Legal accountability on fossil fuels
The landmark advisory opinion on climate change, issued last July by the International Court of Justice, made clear that states have a legal obligation to act effectively and ambitiously on climate change, and that fossil fuel expansion, production, consumption and subsidies are not in line with these international obligations. It followed similar rulings, by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in 2024 and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, also in 2025.
The transition away from fossil fuels is not simply an environmental necessity, but an urgent matter of security, resilience and health. It is a human rights imperative. And an inherently exclusionary approach focused on major powers will not deliver all the benefits of a fossil fuel-free global economy.
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The Santa Marta conference is set to address this and look at how fossil-fuel-dependent countries can diversify on fair terms, how communities can access and produce affordable and reliable renewable energy, and how the transition can deliver visible social and economic gains instead of reproducing new forms of exclusion, dependency, and insecurity.
At Santa Marta we can make meaningful, lasting progress through a diplomacy of implementation, inclusion and legal accountability that can provide a new yardstick for all the other multilateral processes on climate change and other fossil fuel-related issues, such as plastics, food, health, taxation and the protection of peace.
A full statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Santa Marta Conference can be found here.
