At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, conversations are circling back to first principles — what the science says, and what it would mean to act accordingly.
Tue 28 Apr 2026 13.10
Photo: supplied
The conversations unfolding in Santa Marta are quiet(ly) radical.
Not the kind of radical that announces itself with grandstanding speeches or late-night dealmaking, but the steadier, more grounded kind: scientists, parliamentarians and policy thinkers circling back to first principles. What are we trying to do? What does the science say? And perhaps most importantly, what would it look like to act like we believe it?
At the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, those questions are cutting through the usual fog of climate diplomacy and processes driven by the need for consensus, which often leads to stalemates.
In the Global Science and Policy stream, there’s been a consistent, insistent refrain: everything must be anchored in the science. Not selectively, not rhetorically, but fully.
That means taking seriously the well-established research that limiting warming to 1.5°C is not a nice-to-have target. It is the boundary condition for a planet that remains safely habitable for humans.
And the implications of that are stark.
If we are to stay within that limit, most known fossil fuel reserves must remain unextracted. Not burned more efficiently. Not offset. Not gradually tapered off while simultaneously expanding supply. Simply left in the ground.
It is a point that sounds obvious when stated plainly, and yet it remains curiously absent from much of the global policy architecture. For years, climate discussions have orbited around emissions accounting, important, yes, but often abstracted from the physical reality that emissions come from fossil fuel supplies.
Santa Marta is shifting that lens back to the source.
Running alongside the science is a political and policy stream.
The Parliamentarians for a Fossil Fuel Free Future initiative started off the parliamentarian meetings processes. Their call is for a clear phase-out of fossil fuels, and critically, an end to the public subsidies that continue to prop them up.
The Fossil Free Rising declaration captures this mood succinctly: governments cannot claim climate leadership while expanding fossil fuel production and financing the very industries driving the crisis.
Australia finds itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position.
While no Minister level delegates have attended, they are dealing with political challenges over fossil fuels and gas taxation at home, a handful of federal government representatives are in Santa Marta, joining more than 80 countries that have committed to phasing out fossil fuels following discussions at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly in Belém.
This groundbreaking meeting is not a one-off. It is the first in a series aimed at building a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. And Australia is in the room, and an important player given our role in supplying many nations with fossil fuels and holding a Presidential role in global climate negotiations.
The Australia Institute has also been in the room with science-led discussions and parliamentarian meetings, sharing analysis that focuses not on abstract targets, but on practical policy choices the Australian government could make now to deliver an orderly phase-out.
The tension is hard to ignore.
On one hand, Australia has signed on to international commitments, including the Belém Declaration, that centre on a transition away from fossil fuels.
On the other hand, fossil fuel exports continue to grow, new projects are being approved, and public subsidies remain entrenched.
This moment highlights a clear conundrum. The world, including Australia, has committed to phasing out fossil fuels, yet Australia is not maximising returns from its existing exports, nor planning for their decline.
The window for the fossil fuel industry is closing. The rest of the world is beginning to act like it knows this.
Against that backdrop, the contribution from The Australia Institute is deliberately simple.
Rather than layering new complexity onto climate policy, it sets out four practical steps Australia could take to fulfil its commitments and begin an orderly transition.
First, stop making the problem bigger by banning new gas and coal projects. The most direct way to end fossil fuel production is to stop expanding it.
Second, establish a clear timeline for the phase-out. Without a defined end date, there is little incentive for industry or communities to plan for change.
Third, stop paying for the problem by eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. Australia has repeatedly committed to doing this, yet subsidies have reached record levels in recent years.
And fourth, make polluters pay by increasing taxes on production. At present, Australia collects remarkably little revenue from fossil fuel exports, less in some cases than it collects from students, nurses, teachers or even beer drinkers.
These are not radical ideas. They are practical, well understood, and widely supported.
What has been missing is the political will to implement them.
There is a sense, in the corridors and conversations here, that something is shifting. Not yet a tipping point, but perhaps the early stages of one.
Colombia has stopped issuing new coal, oil and gas exploration licences. South Korea is moving to close its coal-fired power stations. Across the globe, governments are beginning to align policy with the reality that the fossil fuel era is ending.
And threaded through it all is a growing recognition that countries that fail to plan for this transition risk being left behind.
For Australia, this moment carries both risk and opportunity.
The risk is clear. Continuing to expand fossil fuel production while the rest of the world moves toward phase-out leaves Australia exposed: economically, socially, and diplomatically.
But the opportunity is just as clear.
By aligning policy with both the science and its international commitments, Australia could move from contradiction to credibility.
Santa Marta will not, on its own, deliver the fossil fuel phase-out the science demands.
But it is doing something just as important: bringing together the science, the politics, and the policy tools needed to make it happen.
It is also making the choices facing countries like Australia much harder to avoid.
The conversations here are warm, engaged, often challenging, but grounded in understanding that the shared mission is to phase out fossil fuels.
For Australia, the question is no longer whether we know what to do.
It is whether we are prepared to do it.
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The first public hearing for the Select Committee on the Taxation of Gas resources saw environmental and community groups argue Australia is failing to secure a fair return from its gas exports, with a proposal for a 25 per cent export tax gaining traction.
Isn’t it peculiar that we get to this week in April and suddenly the impossible seems so inevitable that we start hearing about all the “sensible” compromises? Six months ago, any sort of talk about a gas tax was dismissed as leftie pipe dreams.
