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Santa Marta’s Test: Turning Fossil Fuel Commitments into Rights-Based Action

Santa Marta’s Test: Turning Fossil Fuel Commitments into Rights-Based Action

Between 24 and 29 April, the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels took place in Santa Marta, Colombia. The Conference, hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, was set up in response to the lack of meaningful, implementation-oriented outcomes to give effect to the commitment of transitioning away from fossil fuels at the multilateral level. It also aimed to advance practical pathways for a just, orderly and equitable transition. 

Read more here. 

Throughout the Conference, we participated in debates and strategic spaces with feminists, civil society organisations, government representatives and other stakeholders, bringing a human rights and gender-just perspective to discussions on defossilisation to ensure that the transition is centred on the needs of people and planet. Our contributions highlighted the structural inequalities underpinning the climate emergency and strongly emphasised that any transition must be gender-just and care-centred.  

We also joined collective civil society efforts to emphasise that any transition framework must be grounded in human rights, including the rights to participation, access to information and free, prior and informed consent. In this context, our interventions underscored the importance of ensuring the protection of environmental and land defenders and that affected communities can meaningfully engage in decision-making processes shaping the transition away from fossil fuels. 

 

First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels 

 

From 27 to 29 April, Colombia and the Netherlands hosted the two formal spaces of discussion that constituted the official Conference: the Assembly of the People and the High-Level Segment.  

The Assembly of the People served as a forum to bring together feminists, social movements, groups, NGOs and other stakeholders and a space where the collective demands could be delivered into the formal process. The Assembly hosted a total of 250 participants, including 60 elected representatives from the movement-led People's Summit. 

The High-Level Segment was the main space for debate among the States and deliberation. It included a series of dialogues, both in plenary and divided into working thematic sessions, around the three interconnected thematic pillars of the Conference: 

  1. Overcoming economic dependence, recognising that many countries rely on fossil fuels for public revenues, employment, and broader economic activity. 
  2. Transformation of both the supply and demand of fossil fuels. 
  3. International cooperation and multilateralism, aiming to bridge existing gaps in governance and implementation, including limitations within the UNFCCC framework. 

The participation of civil society was limited due to the bottleneck approach established by the hosts. During the Assembly of the Peoples, each of the chapters that civil society was divided into (NGOs, Women and Diversities, Social Movements, Afrodescendants, Indigenous Peoples, Farmers and Youth) elected representatives to attend the High-Level Segment. GI-ESCR's Programme Officer on Climate and Environmental Justice, Maggie Rochi, was elected to represent the Women and Diversities chapter. Representatives from Trade Unions, Academia, the Private Sector and Parliamentarians also participated. 

The formal spaces of the Conference saw substantive debates, beyond the formal outcomes that came from the process. On the question of economic dependence on fossil fuels, discussions had a significant emphasis on moving from fiscal lock-in and debt-constrained fiscal space toward higher fiscal capacity, with concrete proposals including debt-for-climate swaps, progressive tax reform and strengthened oversight of fossil assets. 

On supply and demand transformation, the discussions emphasised the need for a managed phase-down of fossil fuel extraction, clear policy signals and long-term planning, and the importance of community-led approaches and participation to build legitimacy for the transition. Similarly, the focus on energy access for rural, remote and marginalised communities, and the call for community-owned distributed renewable systems, reflects a commitment to ensuring the transition reaches everyone. However, there was a notable gap in discussions: care responsibilities and their centrality to a just transition were largely absent. 

At the end of the Conference, Colombia and the Netherlands published the takeaways of the Conference. This document marks an important political step; it presents the imperative of the transition away from fossil fuels and highlights the commitment of a coalition of willing states, representing approximately one-third of global GDP, to move towards a fossil-free future. While recognising the current context of geopolitical instability and market volatility, the document goes further in considering the transition to be essential, not only for climate mitigation, but also for energy security and economic resilience. By doing so, it distances itself from the limited outcomes achieved within the UNFCCC process in recent editions, creating a political pathway for accelerated climate action. 

The official document highlights five key outcomes of the meeting:  

  1. The announcement of a second conference in 2027, to be co-hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland, signalling political continuity and suggesting that this process is intended to become a sustained platform for implementation.  
  2. The establishment of a dedicated group to sustain momentum towards the second conference and strengthen connections with existing alliances and initiatives, while ensuring alignment with ongoing processes under the UNFCCC.  
  3. The embedding of the Conference’s efforts within the broader multilateral ecosystem, with plans to formally channel its results into key political moments such as the Subsidiary Bodies’ session and upcoming climate weeks; an approach that seeks to both sustain momentum and amplify political visibility.  
  4. The establishment of three thematic workstreams focused on identifying concrete opportunities and channels for cooperation to overcome fossil fuel dependencies. These workstreams aim to remain flexible and inclusive, enabling countries to engage according to their capacities and priorities while drawing on existing expertise. 
  5. The launch of a Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition. 

 

Santa Marta Must Strengthen the UNFCCC, Not Become a Parallel Track 

 

Tuvalu’s role as co-host carries strong symbolic and political weight. It also indicates that the next conference could be shaped by countries with high levels of ambition and a clear interest in translating commitments into concrete policies. 

At the same time, both the second and third outcomes speak to one of the central tensions of the Santa Marta process: the relationship between this coalition of willing States and the broader multilateral system. While efforts such as Santa Marta can be powerful drivers of ambition, their impact ultimately depends on whether that ambition feeds back into more permanent frameworks or regimes. A coalition that advances bold positions outside the UNFCCC risks becoming a parallel track that empties the multilateral system rather than reinvigorates it, while not creating an effective replacement of the existing frameworks. A political convening is very different from a binding treaty, with clear legal obligations for States. For Santa Marta to fulfil its potential, the dedicated group must be a lever to push the UNFCCC and the Member States that have historically obstructed progress toward a fossil-free future. The value of a club of the willing will be to push the multilateral system to finally act.  

Implementation Tools Must Reflect Rights, Care and Frontline Priorities 

Regarding the three thematic workstreams, there is some concern regarding an overly economic and financial framing, risking the production of recommendations that are financially coherent but ignore the human rights implications of the transition. Their value will also depend on their design and analytical scope. Tuvalu’s role as co-host of the next conference could help ensure that they reflect the priorities of frontline communities and the Global South. 

Lastly, the launch of a Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition places science at the centre of the process, helping to anchor decisions in pathways aligned with the 1.5°C goal and to address legal, financial and political barriers to transition. This is a welcome step, provided the Panel’s mandate is broad and inclusive. Science should not be reduced to technical or economic modelling; it must also include the social, gender and human rights dimensions of the transition. Otherwise, the Panel risks producing roadmaps that are technically sound but disconnected from realities on the ground. It will also be important to ensure coherence with other initiatives, such as the future Belém-Antalya Mechanism and the ILO Just Transition Gateway. 

The Test Is Whether Santa Marta Can Shape Real Multilateral Action 

The takeaways document also includes a Summary of discussions that reflects a meaningful step forward in building the shared understanding and political will needed to advance a just transition away from fossil fuels. Together, these discussions show that implementation depends on more than technical energy planning. It also requires fiscal capacity, public finance, participation, rights-based governance and international cooperation. Colombia and the Netherlands are expected to release a full co-host report of the Conference at London Climate Week, which will hopefully further develop the discussions that took place in Santa Marta. It will be key that these discussions find their way into formal UNFCCC processes, feeding into upcoming negotiations and contributing to the kind of ambitious, rights-based and gender-just outcomes that the climate emergency demands. Santa Marta has set an important precedent. Ensuring its findings carry weight in the multilateral arena will be key to translating this momentum into real policy change. 

 

The People’s Summit for a Fossil-Free Future 

 

The People’s Summit for a Fossil-Free Future was a civil-society-led space held from 24 to 26 April, prior to the official high-level segments of the Conference.  It was organised to complement the Conference’s broader aim of moving from political commitments on transitioning away from fossil fuels towards practical pathways for implementation. The Summit served as a space for self-organised civil society to debate, consolidate common positions and unify demands ahead of the formal process, helping ensure that civil society perspectives could feed into discussions on a just, orderly and equitable fossil fuel phase-out.  

Over the three days of the Summit, discussions were divided both in regional and sectoral discussions to come up with unified positions and select representatives who would deliver a common position at the Assembly of the People.  

Among the demands that emerged during this process, there was a crucial call for a rapid, people-centred, gender-just and rights-based expansion of renewable energy (especially solar and wind), not merely to meet new demand but to actively replace fossil fuels and address energy poverty. They called for care-centred transition policies that recognise, revalue and equitably redistribute care work, guarantee universal quality services in health, education and care, and place social protection and community wellbeing at the heart of regenerative economies, advancing gender equality and women's rights across every dimension of the transition.  

The space managed to build a unified position, to be delivered at the Assembly of the People, which was held on 27 April as part of the official process. During the Summit, regional leaders elected 60 representatives to join the Assembly of the People and bring civil society demands into the formal process. 

Santa Marta showed the collective power that civil society has, both in mobilising for stronger climate action and in putting together the Summit itself. The work of civil society proved essential to overcome the difficulty of organising such a Conference on a short timeline, and despite the challenges faced by many colleagues to arrive in Santa Marta, the Summit guaranteed broader participation of stakeholders to guide the Conference towards higher ambition, ending with a Declaration that sets a roadmap towards a fossil-free future. 

 

Feminist Just Transition Mixer 

 

On 29 April, together with WEDO, WECF, WILPF, MENAFEM and LIMPAL Colombia, we hosted the Feminist Just Transition Mixer, a space intentionally designed for feminists and gender justice advocates to come together, connect and celebrate at the close of the Conference. After days of intense negotiations, panels and advocacy work, the Mixer offered a moment to pause, reflect and recognise the vital role that feminist movements play in advancing a just transition. It brought together activists, organisers and practitioners from across the globe, creating an atmosphere of solidarity, joy and shared purpose. 

 

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.