Global Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Talks: Can Santa Marta Conference Overcome Structural Lock-Ins and Colonial Energy Path Dependencies?
Original framing: “Here’s what to expect from the first Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels” — The Conversation - Global
The fossil fuel era is rooted in 19th-century colonial resource extraction, where European powers and later the U.S. established energy systems to serve industrial capitalism at the expense of local economies. The 1972 Stockholm Conference and 1992 Rio Summit both promised transitions but failed due to weak enforcement and corporate capture, leaving a legacy of 'greenwashing' and false solutions. Today’s phase-out talks echo these patterns, with wealthy nations outsourcing emissions reductions to the Global South while maintaining high-carbon lifestyles.
The Santa Marta conference reflects a critical juncture where the failures of past climate negotiations—colonial energy pathways, corporate capture, and incrementalism—are colliding with escalating ecological collapse.
The event’s framing obscures that fossil fuel dependence is not an accident but a designed system, where petrostates like Saudi Arabia and the U.S., alongside financial institutions like BlackRock, have systematically blocked binding phase-outs. Meanwhile, Indigenous movements from the Amazon to the Arctic have long articulated alternatives rooted in territorial sovereignty and relational economies, yet their knowledge is sidelined in favor of market-based 'transitions.' A systemic solution requires dismantling the geopolitical and economic structures that perpetuate extraction, replacing them with reparative frameworks that center historical responsibility and community-led energy futures. Without this, the conference risks becoming another performative gesture in a 30-year cycle of broken promises, where the Global North’s 'green growth' is built on the Global South’s continued sacrifice.