New Climate Summit Excludes Nations Supporting Fossil Fuels

A first-of-its-kind climate summit that excludes fossil-fuel supporting nations is taking place on the Colombian coastline over the next five days, sparking hope that they could work to create a true climate action plan without hindrances.

The summit, taking place in the town of Santa Marta, is one of the first-ever climate conferences to completely exclude the United Nations, primarily due to the stark opposition climate-supporting nations face from fossil fuel-friendly countries.

Oil lobbying also plays a huge factor in decision-making at major conferences, like the recent COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia consistently hold back nations focused on preventing climate change, leading to mere frameworks and inaction as a group. The plastics industry is also strongly connected to oil, as plastics are a petroleum-based product, negatively impacting efforts to combat litter, microplastics pollution, and other factors.

However, this new conference, aimed at taking real action, excludes those nations, including the United States. The Trump administration has consistently taken a pro-fossil fuel approach, with Trump even denying the existence of climate change as a whole. The United States' power over the rest of the world has also driven other countries to disregard or place environmental concerns on the backburner; just yesterday, France announced that they would be removing climate change from the agenda of the upcoming G7 conference in June, in order to prevent a confrontation with the United States over the topic. Of course, this has been highly contended against by established scientists, and the effects of climate change are already being felt all over the world.

Because of this, nations attending the conference in Colombia – which will be co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands – have deemed it imperative that action is taken. Over 60 countries will be in attendance, including the United Kingdom, Brazil, the Philippines, and the European Union as a whole. World leaders have asserted that the absence of major oil-producing nations and climate change-denying countries like the United States will foster a more productive environment for negotiations and is much more likely to produce a tangible outcome, rather than having talks fall apart due to oil lobbying and other political factors that fail to prioritize the health and safety of the Earth.

Bolstering renewable energy is also one of the strongest ways to reduce energy dependency, particularly during a time when many nations are struggling to keep oil and natural gas flowing as the US-Iran war persists. The current situation in the Strait of Hormuz has motivated developing and developed nations alike to ramp up energy independence, as they have seen what a lack of oil can do to their respective economies.

Even oil-producing nations are beginning to realize the impending global shift– Colombia itself is a massive oil and coal exporter, with fossil fuels making up more than 10% of the nation's GDP. Nevertheless, they recognize that renewables are the future, and they are currently investing millions into a smooth clean energy transition that is set to take place over the next few decades.

However, that isn't to say that all nations attending the conference are in agreement. Some believe in different methods of transitioning away from fossil fuels, including whether a treaty or action plan should be binding or not. This conference will set the stage for what future negotiations for the rest of the world might look like, but the absence of pro-fossil fuel nations are sure to create a more productive environment that is more likely to end with an actual result.

Whether anything actually will be achieved, though, is still in contention– and a real result could look like a plan, a treaty, or even just a standard or a deadline to attempt to make the transition to clean energy more efficient or more cost-effective. The conference runs from April 24-29, so the world will be watching to see what stance each country takes on climate change and what they might come up with.

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Image credit to the New York Times