Frustration with the COP process and its failure to produce a plan that can meet the growing climate emergency has led a group of countries to launch a new assembly aimed at the implementation of practical strategies for change.
The end of April 2026 saw the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossils Fuels held in Santa Marta, Colombia, where a group of 57 countries debated practical ways to move away from coal, oil and gas. This is a significant break from the COP process, where the consensus method was used by fossil fuel corporations and their governmental backers, such as the United States, Russia and Saudi Arabia, to sabotage the urgent measures needed to take action. In effect, COP was becoming a sleepwalk towards climate disaster.
To avoid further sabotage by fossil fuel interests, the Colombia conference was an invite-only event organised by Colombia and the Netherlands. The second conference, to be held later this year, will be hosted by Ireland and Tuvalu, taking place in the Pacific island nation.
“We need to go back to science”
At the Colombia conference, the scientific research was put front and centre with a ‘science pre-conference’ bringing together hundreds of academics and including the launch of a new science panel aiming to provide research and analysis to nations wanting to accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels.
Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister, was particularly keen to emphasise the importance of science to the conference, telling journalists: “We need to go back to science and base our decisions on science.”
The US war on Iran and the economic crisis it is producing, alongside worsening extreme weather events, formed the backdrop to what were described as open and frank conversations about the barriers faced in transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The dangers of the next El Nino and the AMOC
The conference took place in a period when a wide range of scientific studies have been published demonstrating growing concern with two specific climate developments. Many climate scientists’ immediate concern is the next ‘El Nino’ which is the heating of the eastern Pacific that leads to warmer overall global temperatures. The next El Nino, due to take hold from the summer of 2026, is being described as a Super El Nino, which is set to make 2027 the hottest year on record with tens of thousands of people likely to be killed by heat across the globe.
Over the longer term, there is also growing concern about the slowing down of the AMOC (Atlantic meridional overturning circulation), an Atlantic Ocean current which, among other things, is key in ensuring that Britain has a temperate climate. Without the present AMOC, temperatures in Britain will drop by 10 degrees centigrade on average.
Once thought of as distant possibility, Prof Stefan Rahmstorf, a global expert on the issue, is warning that an AMOC slowdown is a real, near-term risk that could occur within 10–20 years, rather than by 2100 as previously assumed.
According to Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, who hosted the conference: “There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy – fossil fuels – that lead to death. Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and other life. The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.”
Time will tell whether the Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossils Fuels will have any greater impact on political decision-making across the globe, but it represents a welcome break from the COPs dominated by the fossil fuel superpowers at the expense of the scientific findings.
Will McMahon sits on the coordinating committee for the 2026 Ecosocialist Conference taking place in London on Saturday 30 May. Tickets are available at https://www.ecosocialism-conference.org/
