Towards a just fossil fuel phase-out
INCLO and six of its members present submissions for the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia.
By Marcela Madrid Vergara, INCLO Climate and Environmental Justice programme coordinator
Science has said it for years: fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) are the main drivers of the climate emergency. More than 90% of global carbon emissions come from the extraction, processing, and burning of fossil fuels. Yet efforts to reduce its production and transition to renewable energy sources remain insufficient. The official space to discuss measures against climate change is the Climate COP, but due to its consensus-based nature and the strong influence of the fossil fuel industry, countries struggle to agree on concrete steps towards a phaseout.
To accelerate this process, the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands decided to organize the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which will take place in Santa Marta, Colombia, from April 24th to 29th.
The Conference is designed as a space for countries, subnational governments, communities, and civil society sectors to identify enabling pathways to implement a just, orderly, and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. The organizers have emphasized that, unlike COP, this will not be a space to convince other governments on the need to end fossil fuels, but rather a convening for those who are ready to do it. They call it the “Coalition of the Willing”: more than 50 countries that will be participating in Santa Marta to agree on how to implement a just transition away from fossil fuels.
Our participation
The Conference opened the possibility for different stakeholders to present contributions identifying the key barriers to advancing a just fossil fuel phase-out and the possible solutions to overcome them. Six INCLO members (Dejusticia, CELS, HRLC, Conectas, KHRC, HRLN) submitted a proposal on the potential of a binding fossil fuel treaty to provide human rights safeguards for a just transition. We will be discussing our arguments in Santa Marta during an academic conference and the People’s Summit, the civil society counterpart to the Conference.
A fossil fuel treaty and human rights
In our contribution, we support the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, an alliance of states and civil society promoting a binding legal instrument to manage the international phase-out of fossil fuels. For us, this instrument must entail principles, safeguards and common rules to:
- Remove legal barriers, curb harmful financial practices, expand fiscal space and align global rules with fossil-fuel phase-out;
- Embed a human rights-based just transition, ensuring participation, transparency, non-discrimination and remedy;
- Protect workers and communities, guarantee equitable access to finance, support women and marginalized groups, and ensure renewables don’t reproduce extractivism;
- Guarantee the right to free, prior and informed consent of affected communities, especially indigenous peoples and local communities, and
- Support community-led energy systems, fair value chains and socially just, ecologically sustainable energy pathways.