The Climate Conference Challenging the COP Process

The Santa Marta Conference (First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, April 24–29, 2026) represents a notable experiment in climate governance: a “coalition of the willing” approach that deliberately sidesteps the full-consensus paralysis of the UN COP process.

The COP process, rooted in the UNFCCC, has delivered landmark agreements (Kyoto, Paris) but struggles with implementation on fossil fuels. COP28 (2023) introduced the phrase “transitioning away from fossil fuels” without timelines, targets, or enforcement. COP30 (2025 in Belém, Brazil) faced criticism for limited progress amid opposition from major producers and the influence of lobbyists.

Core problems:

• Requires near-universal consensus → veto power for petrostates (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Russia) and large emitters.
• Massive scale invites performative diplomacy, endless procedural fights, and dilution.
• Blurs ambition with inclusion, often prioritizing lowest-common-denominator outcomes.
• Heavy fossil fuel industry presence.

Santa Marta emerged as a response: hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in a coal-exporting city, it gathered ~57 countries (representing ~1/3 of global GDP, mostly democracies) plus subnational actors (e.g., California), civil society, Indigenous groups, and others for focused, non-negotiated dialogue on implementation.

Over 1,500 participants across stakeholder dialogues. Described as “refreshing,” “groundbreaking,” and a shift from ambition-setting to managing decline.

This isn’t the first “club” (e.g., previous initiatives on methane, EVs, or subsidies), but it’s the most direct challenge on the core issue: fossil fuels. It highlights a maturing trend toward variable geometry in climate action—broad COP for norms/legitimacy, smaller groups for speed and depth.

Energy transitions are decades-long, capital-intensive processes driven more by technology costs, national politics, and markets than conferences. Santa Marta is a promising signal of political will among willing actors, but it doesn’t solve the fundamental physics/economics (intermittency, materials, grid, developing world growth) or geopolitics of energy.

It challenges the COP model productively without rejecting multilateralism.

Whether it accelerates real-world decarbonization—or joins the long list of high-profile climate meetings—will depend on follow-through in national capitals far more than declarations in Santa Marta.

The next conference in Tuvalu (vulnerable island nation) will be a telling stress test.

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The Breakaway Climate Conference Challenging the COP Process

Colombia and the Netherlands co-hosted the first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels Conference in the coastal city of Santa Marta in Colombia from April 24–29. By Felicity Bradstock

Several state leaders praised the conference for its explicit focus on reducing reliance on fossil fuels and supporting a global green transition, particularly as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) annual COP climate conference has been increasingly critiqued for giving a platform to oil and gas lobbyists. The OilPrice.com has the story.

The UNFCCC has held a COP summit almost every year since 1992, with representatives from most countries attending. To agree on joint climate action, a consensus must be achieved among country representatives.

However, due to the participation of several oil-producing states, climate progress has often been stifled. While the summits have helped countries agree to transition away from fossil fuels, progress has been limited due to the lack of a timeline or blueprint on how this might be achieved.

During the COP30 climate summit in Brazil, the Colombian government announced plans to host a breakaway conference. The government stressed the importance of establishing a “coalition of the willing” to discuss how to make the green transition tangible.

The organizers of the new conference have been adamant in stating that the conference is not a replacement for the annual COP conference, but is, instead, a gathering that is complementary to COP.

The aim is that the conference provides an “innovative, horizontal dialogue that deepens democratic climate governance through meaningful and influential participation by countries and subnational governments, civil society, and other stakeholders.”

According to the leadership, “The objective of the Conference is to initiate a concrete process through which a coalition of committed countries, subnational governments, and relevant stakeholders can identify and advance enabling pathways to implement a progressive transition away from fossil fuels, creating sustainable societies and economies.

This process will be informed by the experience and perspectives of national and subnational governments, academia, Indigenous Peoples, Peoples of African Descent, peasants, civil society, workers, the private sector, and other key actors at different stages of the transition.”

The conference brought together governments from 57 countries – representing one-third of the world’s economy – to create practical, accelerated roadmaps for phasing out coal, oil, and gas.

The states in attendance included EU member states, the U.K., the COP31 co-hosts – Turkey and Australia, dozens of developing countries, and several oil- and gas-producing states, such as Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Angola, and Canada. China, India, the U.S., Russia, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates were all absent from the conference.

Read the full story here.