{"id":250216,"date":"2025-11-07T23:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T23:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/250216\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T23:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T23:14:15","slug":"to-make-peace-with-nature-we-need-a-fossil-fuel-free-amazon-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/250216\/","title":{"rendered":"To make peace with nature, we need a fossil fuel-free Amazon | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nature is angry. Just ask the Caribbean, where residents are recovering from one of the most powerful hurricanes<\/a> in their history. This extreme event, like many others, bears the fingerprints of climate change, driven by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n

When I first became President of Colombia, Indigenous leaders told me that I must make peace, not just with the rebels, but with nature too. They were right \u2014 and international law is on our side.<\/p>\n

In a landmark ruling<\/a> in July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) told governments they have binding legal duties to act on climate change. It warned that state support for fossil fuels, whether through licences, permits or subsidies, may be a \u201cwrongful act.\u201d This advice is already having an impact: in August, a Brazilian court ordered a coal mine and power plant to halt operations, citing the ICJ.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile clean energy is increasingly competitive. Wind and solar grew to supply a third of Brazil\u2019s electricity in August, building resilience alongside hydropower and reducing the need for additional gas-fired plants. Santiago de Chile is on track to run two thirds of its buses on electricity by the end of the year. Globally, the direction of travel is clear: Europe agreed this week to double-down on their green transition, while China has put its economic might behind renewable technologies. <\/p>\n

The flipside is that producers of coal, oil and gas<\/a> face an increasingly uncertain future. As clean energy erodes demand for fossil fuels, the jobs and government revenues associated with the sector won\u2019t last forever. Every region that depends on fossil fuel extraction urgently needs a plan to diversify into new sectors, reskill workers and support affected communities.<\/p>\n

For Colombia, conserving nature is at the heart of plans to rebalance the economy away from fossil fuel extraction \u2014 and keep the peace. Where this is properly implemented, former combatants and communities are coming together to preserve forests and rivers, and promote ecotourism. International cooperation and investment is critical. <\/p>\n

That is why I support Brazil\u2019s initiative, as host of the COP30 climate conference<\/a>, to develop a roadmap to break dependence on fossil fuels. European and climate-vulnerable nations back the idea, and it is in the interests of producers and consumers alike to engage constructively. <\/p>\n

By working together, countries can make this transition fast, fair and orderly. But we can\u2019t wait for unanimity to protect our most precious ecosystems<\/a> from exploitation. The world\u2019s largest rainforest demands immediate attention. <\/p>\n

Reckless extraction \u2014 both legal and illegal \u2014 combined with climate disruption is pushing the Amazon to a dangerous tipping point. Beyond the tipping point, there is a risk of accelerating forest loss and even biome-wide collapse. <\/p>\n

Part of the problem is fossil fuels. Over the past 15 years, oil and gas extraction across four Amazonian countries has been linked to 5,000 environmental incidents. These have polluted rivers and soils, at an unacceptable cost to wildlife and people\u2019s health. Vast areas are further threatened by oil and gas expansion, as well as illegal mining.<\/p>\n

Indigenous people have led calls to stop the drilling. After a year-long inquiry, members of the global network Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future set out an action plan to protect the Amazon. It calls for an end to new oil and gas exploration, strengthening Indigenous governance and creating financial instruments to keep fossil fuels in the ground.<\/p>\n

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has thrown its weight behind a Fossil-Free Amazon. When leaders meet at the gateway of the Amazon<\/a> in Belem this month, we urge them to join this effort. What better peace offering to our natural world?<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Santos is chair of The Elders, former president of Colombia and Nobel Peace Laureate.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nature is angry. Just ask the Caribbean, where residents are recovering from one of the most powerful hurricanes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[104295,9548,21771,1397,104294,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-250216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-amazonas","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-colombia","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-juan-manuel-santos-calderon","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}