YEE’s reflections on the Santa Marta Conference

Our team has spent the last week closely monitoring the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, which took place from 24 to 29 April 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia. Coming off the back of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP30) in Belém, which was also called the COP of Truth, Santa Marta felt like the first real test of whether governments are actually ready to handle that reality.

If Belém was about securing our seat at the table through the Belém Action Mechanism, Santa Marta was about the how. For the first time, we saw a space not bogged down by UNFCCC veto politics. Because it was a dialogue rather than a formal negotiation, it was a safe space for the willing where fossil fuel lobbies were kept out, allowing youth, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society to raise their voices directly to states in a genuine back-and-forth.

What really hit home for us was the translation gap. Let us be real: the EU does not lack the tools to end the fossil era. We have carbon pricing, trade mechanisms, and massive leverage in the World Bank. The problem we see is political coherence.

Currently, these instruments are still calibrated to protect incumbent interests like the old industry while maintaining a thin veil of climate credibility. We saw EU representatives talk about global leadership while greenlighting new domestic gas projects in Germany and the Netherlands back home. This approach seems like a choice to protect the status quo over our future. For instance, while France has submitted a roadmap with time-bound phase-out dates, the broader EU submission remains vague and relies too heavily on loan-based support, and others like Norway, unfortunately remain committed to being stable suppliers of oil and gas.

Why this matters for youth

The Childhood and Youth Subchapter group pushed for change in how we judge progress by demanding that the best interests of the child become a binding legal criterion for every single energy project. This is both a moral plea and a structural necessity tied to the new Science Panel for the Global Energy Transition (SPGET), which is a massive win because it can finally close the discrepancy between high-level policy and the indigenous and local expertise that has been ignored for too long.

However, we are wary of the shift toward a technocratic space. If we treat the transition as a technical exercise of energy addition rather than a rights-based phase out, we risk repeating old inequalities. We noticed a clear gap: while there is mention of consulting communities, there is still very little on the actual decision-making power for youth. We must ensure the three new workstreams on roadmaps, economic dependencies, and trade do not become mere technical blueprints but tools for social justice.

This shift is even more urgent given the current security crisis. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed and Europe’s fossil fuel bill jumping by 24 billion euros in just a few months, the old argument that quitting fossils is an economic risk has been exposed as a myth. The real risk to our generation is staying hooked on a volatile and expensive past. By moving the next conference to Tuvalu in 2027, the movement is officially putting the people on the absolute frontlines in the driver’s seat. We are no longer waiting for the powerful to catch up; instead, we are shifting the center of gravity toward those who have the most to lose and the most to teach us about resilience.

YEE response statement

The era of voluntary promises has reached its limit. The Santa Marta Conference has exposed a dangerous translation gap where the EU possesses the tools to end the fossil era but lacks the political courage to deploy them fairly. We demand that the best interests of the youth move from a box-ticking exercise to a binding legal mandate for every energy project. If Europe wants to be a partner to the Global South, it must stop using trade mechanisms as protectionist shields and start funding a just transition that does not leave our generation with the bill. We must move beyond temporary windfall taxes toward permanent frameworks and the immediate redirection of the $1.2 trillion in fossil subsidies to end the proliferation of fossil fuels once and for all. We are moving toward a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty with or without the powerful leading the way.

We have followed Santa Marta with mixed feelings but renewed clarity. The willing are not yet powerful, but the momentum is past the point of no return. We specifically look to the new Science Panel (SPGET) to bridge the gap between high-level science and national roadmaps that prioritize social justice over technocratic blueprints. To the governments back home: the economic and security case for a phase-out is closed. The only thing left is your decision to act.

As we move forward in 2026, we will be rigorously following this agenda in the run-up to the 64th sessions of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies (SB 64) intersessional meetings in Bonn (8–18 June 2026). Our focus is on accountability. We will be tracking the formal submission of the conference report as it is handed over to the COP30 Presidency to influence the 2nd Global Stocktake. Furthermore, we are demanding that the Santa Marta outcomes, including the new subsidy disclosure methodology, are officially integrated into the global roadmap heading toward COP31 in Antalya.