{"id":547855,"date":"2026-04-24T07:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547855\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T07:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T07:17:08","slug":"countries-meet-in-first-global-effort-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/547855\/","title":{"rendered":"Countries meet in first global effort to phase out fossil fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the same time, events beyond the climate sphere are beginning to reshape the debate of fossil energy.<\/p>\n

While the US, the world’s largest economy has pushed back strong strongly in favour of coal, oil and gas, under President Trump, many other countries are now sitting on the fence in terms of the scale and speed of their move away from fossil energy<\/p>\n

Participants at the Santa Marta meeting believe the real purpose of the meeting is to show those who are hesitating about the transition that there is a critical mass moving in favour of renewables.<\/p>\n

“We are committed to working with other countries to support those wishing to drive forward their transitions to clean and secure energy,” said UK Climate Envoy Rachel Kyte who is attending the gathering. <\/p>\n

“We have the experience of our transition to share and the recent experience of driving to energy security with our clean power mission.”<\/p>\n

Conflict in the Middle East has pushed up oil prices in recent weeks, highlighting the risks of dependence on fossil fuels and bringing questions of energy security back into focus. <\/p>\n

“This is exactly why this conference matters now,” said former Irish President Mary Robinson, who is attending the meeting as a founding member of The Elders , external<\/a>group of former world leaders.<\/p>\n

“The urgency is multiplied. What’s happening has worsened the fossil fuel crisis we’re already in.”<\/p>\n

The dramatic events in the Straits of Hormuz and elsewhere are impacting the choices people are making about energy consumption.<\/p>\n

“I’ve just stepped off an advisory board meeting with Mercedes-Benz, and they expressed what’s happening as a success – a sharp rise in demand for electric vehicles in Europe,” Prof Rockstr\u00f6m said.<\/p>\n

“People are recognising they want energy independence – they don’t want to be in the hands of a volatile oil and gas market.”<\/p>\n

The emergence of this new “coalition of the willing” raises questions about whether it represents a shift away from the COP process altogether.<\/p>\n

“Ultimately you don’t need all countries to drive global progress. You need a starting point,” said Katerine Petersen from think tank E3G, who is attending the meeting.<\/p>\n

“Then you need a coalition that can expand over time and show how it can and will be useful. And I think that’s what we’re expecting to see from Santa Marta.”<\/p>\n

The organisers stress that this meeting is not an alternative to COP, but see it as playing a key role in reviving that process.<\/p>\n

Some of the leaders of the Brazilian COP will be in attendance in Santa Marta and the main conclusions agreed there will become part of Brazil’s roadmap away from fossil fuels that the country has said it will publish before COP31 in Turkey in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the same time, events beyond the climate sphere are beginning to reshape the debate of fossil energy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-547855","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547855","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=547855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}