conference<\/a>, in Santa Marta, Colombia, on transitioning away from fossil fuels. It aims to \u201ccreate a coalition of the ambitious\u201d and provide fresh energy to faltering global climate negotiations.<\/p>\nMore than 50 countries, dozens of subnational governments and thousands of civil society representatives are attending the event, which has been arranged outside a UN process that has become so hamstrung by industry lobbyists that the final declaration of the most recent Cop30 in Brazil could not even mention the words \u201cfossil fuels\u201d.<\/p>\n
The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) published research at the conference showing the vast financial support planet-heating fossil fuels continue to receive. In 2024, the report says, fossil fuels globally received $1.2tn of subsidies and other forms of support from the public purse, in contrast to the $254bn of support that went towards clean energy.<\/p>\n
Angela Picciariello, senior researcher at the IISD, said: \u201cGovernments need to stop making the same mistakes and expecting different outcomes. When energy prices spike, the instinct is often to spend more public money on fossil fuels. But that approach is costly, hard to unwind, and leaves people exposed to the next crisis. The better option is to protect households in the short term while using public finance to scale up renewables and build more resilient energy systems over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The debate in Santa Marta has been more liberated, creative and hopeful than similar previous gatherings, with input and support from a wide spectrum of international society, including Indigenous participants who spelled out how they and their lands had been adversely affected by fossil fuels.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen extractivists move in, they don\u2019t just destroy nature, but also our way of living,\u201d said Luene Karipuna, an Indigenous leader in the Brazilian state of Amap\u00e1.<\/p>\n
While endorsing the eradication of fossil fuels, several Indigenous speakers also expressed concerns that alternatives could also bring challenges to their territories because wind turbines, solar panels and electric car batteries all depend on the mining of critical minerals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not just about fossil fuels. Because after that, what is next? They will find some other reason to come after our land and minerals,\u201d said Patricia Su\u00e1rez of the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon. \u201cWe can\u2019t cut out one problem just to open the door to another. We need to say no to fossil fuels and no to mineral extraction in the Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others said the discussion needed to encompass nature and health, as well as energy. \u201cThe transition should be towards standing forests and fresh water,\u201d said Greg\u00f3rio Mirabal of the Kurripako Indigenous People from Venezuela. \u201cIf we don\u2019t change this [current economic] model of death, we will be left without water, without health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Irene V\u00e9lez Torres, director of the Colombian National Environmental Agency, said Indigenous groups had a more central role in Santa Marta than they usually played at UN summits. They held their own forum on Sunday, from which suggestions will be fed into the main \u201cPeople\u2019s Summit\u201d document that representatives will share at the start of high-level ministerial meetings on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
V\u00e9lez Torres said Indigenous territories were particularly vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders, who take what they can from the land and leave only scars. \u201cExtractivism has left deep wounds in the territories of the Indigenous communities,\u201d she said. How to avoid or heal those wounds, she said, would be part of the discussions at Santa Marta.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The energy transition must not be used as a fresh excuse to plunder Indigenous territories, delegates at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-634203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}