Santa Marta's Parallel Track in Climate

Santa Marta's Parallel Track: The Diplomatic Bypass That Could Outrun the COP

A 57-nation gathering in Colombia, deliberately excluding the world's biggest petrostates, has opened a second lane in climate diplomacy — one where fossil fuel phaseout is planned, not vetoed.

On April 29, 2026, 57 countries representing roughly one-third of global GDP closed the first-ever International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) in Santa Marta, Colombia — and in doing so, they quietly launched the most consequential structural shift in climate governance in a decade. The Santa Marta process, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands, is not a replacement for the UN climate talks. It is a deliberate bypass: a "coalition of the willing" that excludes the veto-wielding petrostates who have stalled fossil fuel phaseout inside the UNFCCC for 30 years, and lets committed states move from debating whether to end oil, gas and coal to planning how (Corporate Knights, BBC News).

The thesis is straightforward. Consensus-based multilateralism has a structural ceiling on fossil fuels, and that ceiling is now binding. Santa Marta is the first serious attempt to route around it — building the national roadmaps, financial reforms, trade alignment and legal scaffolding that a COP hamstrung by Saudi Arabia and its allies cannot. Whether it hardens into a binding treaty by the 2027 Tuvalu conference will determine whether climate diplomacy finally has two usable speeds, or just one permanent deadlock.

The failure that birthed the bypass

The Santa Marta gathering has a precise origin point: the final hours of COP30 in Belém, Brazil, on November 22, 2025. More than 80 countries backed Brazil's proposal for a formal roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, building on the landmark COP28 language from Dubai that first named fossil fuels in a COP decision (UN News). A draft text included the roadmap. Then oil-producing nations — led by Saudi Arabia, which has "systematically fought against any further reference to the term 'transitioning away'" — held the line (SWP Berlin). The final Mutirão deal referred only to the existing UAE Consensus and urged countries to "voluntarily" accelerate action. No roadmap. No strengthened language (BBC News).

Brazil's COP30 President André Aranha Correa do Lago salvaged something from the wreckage: a pledge to create two roadmaps — one on deforestation, one on fossil fuel transition — outside the formal negotiations, and an announcement that Colombia and the Netherlands would host a dedicated conference the following April (Al Jazeera). That promise, made in the closing plenary to applause, is the seed that became Santa Marta.

On the margins of COP30, 24 countries — including Australia, France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and New Zealand — signed the Belém Declaration on the Transition away from Fossil Fuels, a voluntary political commitment that the formal text could not contain (European Parliament). This rump group became the nucleus of the Santa Marta invitation list.

The structural diagnosis is now explicit in the European Parliament's own briefing on the conference, prepared by the Wuppertal Institute: the UNFCCC's consensus rule makes it "of limited suitability when it comes to moderating" the distributional conflict between petrostates and "electrostates," and "international cooperation initiatives that do not require the agreement of all parties" are "increasingly important for implementation" (European Parliament). In plain terms: the COP cannot govern fossil fuel supply because the producers sit at the table. Santa Marta's answer is to set a different table.

The guest list is the strategic instrument. Some oil producers — Canada, Norway, Brazil — were invited. None of the Middle East petrostates were. Nor were the United States, Russia, China or India (Corporate Knights, BBC News). With no vested interest watering down the room, participants could discuss not just reducing fossil fuel demand but phasing out production — the conversation that has been un-discussable inside the COP for three decades. One minister told Tzeporah Berman, founder of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative: "I feel so freed, all the conversations are so creative" (Corporate Knights).

Two speeds, one highway

The framing now gaining currency among analysts is that climate diplomacy runs at two speeds. Wesley Morgan, research associate at UNSW Sydney's Institute for Climate Risk and Response, put it bluntly: "The first speed is that of the UN climate talks, which are slower and anchored in consensus… But what the Santa Marta conference shows is the existence of a second, much faster speed available to any country wanting to rapidly move to end the use of fossil fuels" (Corporate Knights).

This is not a coalition of the willing in the rhetorical sense. It is producing institutional outputs. The conference launched three workstreams: helping countries develop national and regional fossil fuel transition plans; aligning trade policy to support decarbonization; and transforming financial architecture to unlock transition investment (Corporate Knights). The World Resources Institute co-chaired a central bank workstream with over 400 researchers, producing a "Santa Marta Action Repertoire," and launched a new Santa Marta Transition and Financial Stability Group with LINGO, drawing in current and former central bankers from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the EU, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay (World Resources Institute). A new Science Panel on the Global Energy Transition was unveiled to cut through competing models and give decision-makers practical pathways.

Most consequentially, France presented a new national roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels at the conference, with climate envoy Benoît Faraco framing it as an invitation for other countries to develop comparable plans. Colombia and Brazil are reportedly working on their own draft roadmaps, though neither has been finalised (Sciences Po). The Santa Marta final report, released June 23, 2026, at the Global Energy Transition & Electrification Summit in London, is expected to feed directly into Brazil's TAFF roadmap for COP31 in Türkiye this November (Corporate Knights). The report itself struck an optimistic note: "Dialogues were open and constructive, and countries spoke honestly about the challenges they face. It is this 'spirit of Santa Marta' that energizes the work ahead" (Corporate Knights).

The parallel-track strategy is already reshaping subnational climate governance. C40 Cities and the Under2 Coalition, which previously focused on renewables and emissions reductions while avoiding the "controversial" matter of constraining fossil fuel production, have now made fossil fuel phaseout a priority within their own programs. Both are developing handbooks and toolkits for states and cities on their role in escalating phaseout (Corporate Knights). This is a second-order effect: the Santa Marta framing is migrating downward from national governments to the subnational actors who control permitting, procurement and grid planning — the actual levers of supply-side policy.

The conference also convened amid a global energy market crisis prompted by the outbreak of war on Iran, which saw over 130 countries introduce emergency energy measures in the preceding weeks. The World Resources Institute framed this as an accelerant rather than a distraction: "The gathering offered a grounded and hopeful response to the continuing energy shocks… Countries examined how the crisis response can accelerate the shift to a clean, cheap, and — crucially — stable energy system" (World Resources Institute). The argument that fossil fuels are a "systemic source of economic and financial instability" gained traction precisely because the proof was arriving in real time.

The legal tailwind: the ICJ ruling as scaffolding

The Santa Marta process does not operate in a legal vacuum. Nine months before the conference, on July 23, 2025, the International Court of Justice issued its advisory opinion on the obligations of states in respect of climate change. The court ruled unanimously that states have a legal obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas emissions, act with due diligence and cooperation, and limit global warming to 1.5°C under the Paris Agreement. If states breach these obligations, they incur legal responsibility and may be required to cease wrongful conduct, offer guarantees of non-repetition, and make full reparation (ICJ, UN News).

The ruling's practical weight lies in its treatment of customary international law. The ICJ reiterated the duty to prevent transboundary harm — a principle deriving from the Trail Smelter arbitration between the United States and Canada — and confirmed it applies "beyond bilateral borders to problems of global concern, including with respect to the climate system." The standard is calibrated by common but differentiated responsibilities: wealthier countries with strong governance are held to "more demanding measures" than less capable states (Congress.gov).

The European Parliament's briefing on Santa Marta flags the ICJ opinion as a potential anchor for the process: "Following the International Court of Justice opinion in 2025, which clarified that states have a legal obligation to protect the climate system, the Santa Marta process may become an avenue to facilitate the translation of these obligations into national legislation" (European Parliament). The advisory opinion is not binding, but it carries "significant legal and moral authority" and clarifies the legal floor beneath which no state can credibly claim it has no duty to act (UN News). For a process seeking to build binding obligations on fossil fuel phaseout, that matters — it gives national roadmaps a legal hook that the COP's voluntary pledges lack.

The treaty question: the real fault line

The deepest divide exposed in Santa Marta is not between the coalition and the absent petrostates. It is inside the coalition itself: between those who want binding international rules and those who favor nationally determined, flexible pathways.

A group of 18 nations — mostly small island states plus host Colombia — used the conference to call for recognition of "the urgent need to negotiate a new binding international instrument to manage the phase-out of coal, oil and gas" (Sciences Po). This is the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative's core demand: a new legal instrument modelled on nuclear non-proliferation, with three pillars — non-proliferation (ending new exploration), equitable phase-out (wealthy nations moving fastest), and a just transition (Amnesty International).

The nuclear parallel is deliberate and carries weight. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons did not prevent every clandestine programme, but it put a legally binding obligation on states to negotiate disarmament and stopped countries that might otherwise have armed themselves. Its successor, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, entered into force in 2021 with half the UN on board. Legal scholars estimate a threshold of around 50 states would make a fossil fuel treaty credible: "If you have more than 50, other states take it seriously, other institutions take it seriously — especially if it keeps on growing" (BBC Future). Colombia was the first major fossil fuel producer to endorse the idea in December 2023; the European Parliament endorsed it before COP28. The Santa Marta conference was, in part, the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative's effort to move from advocacy to intergovernmental process.

But the conveners were careful to stress Santa Marta was "not a formal negotiation space for a fossil fuel treaty" (Sciences Po). The European Parliament briefing notes the second TAFF conference in Tuvalu may "focus on securing a critical mass of nation-states to begin formal negotiations on an international legal instrument on TAFF" — that is, move from roadmaps to treaty talks (European Parliament). This sequencing is the key design choice: Santa Marta builds the technical and political foundations; Tuvalu tests whether there is a critical mass for legal commitment.

Civil society is impatient. Amnesty International's Candy Ofime said the conference "happened because existing multilateral processes are not delivering. For 30 years, COPs have failed to confront the root causes of the climate crisis head on" and called for governments to "move beyond dialogue" to a binding treaty, citing the ICJ opinion as the legal basis (Amnesty International). Greenpeace has cautioned that "signal isn't a solution" (Sciences Po).

The ISDS target: where the coalition can move fast

One area where the coalition can produce concrete wins without a treaty is the dismantling of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions. The European Parliament briefing identifies ISDS removal as a concrete workstream: "Interested countries may co-ordinate on removal of ISDS provisions from international agreements" (European Parliament). ISDS mechanisms, embedded in thousands of bilateral investment treaties, allow fossil fuel companies to sue governments for lost profits when energy policies change — a direct legal barrier to phaseout that does not require COP consensus to address.

This is where the Santa Marta coalition's exclusion of obstructionist states becomes a tactical advantage. A group of willing states acting in parallel, through their own bilateral treaty renegotiations, can erode this barrier faster than the UNFCCC ever could. The NGOs at the conference identified ISDS reform as one of three core priorities, alongside a Fossil Fuel Treaty and national just transition plans — framing it as essential to giving Global South countries the "fiscal space" to phase out without exposing themselves to corporate litigation (Amnesty International).

The briefing also floats an open-source database with mandatory disclosure, where signatory countries report all new extraction permits in real time to a public international body — a transparency measure that sidesteps the COP's inability to govern supply (European Parliament). Neither of these requires consensus. Neither requires Saudi Arabia's assent.

The geopolitics: who wins, who loses, who waits

The absence of the US, China and India is double-edged. It clears the room of obstruction. It also caps the coalition's ceiling. The SWP Berlin analysis notes that China has "a serious interest in ensuring the continued functioning of the multilateral climate regime" but is "unwilling to act in keeping with its economic role as a provider of clean tech" — and that "advancing the TAFF roadmap outside the UNFCCC makes more sense" for now, with the aim of eventually drawing China in (SWP Berlin). The strategy is explicit: build a critical mass outside, then use that weight to shift the inside.

The named winners from Santa Marta's emergence are clear. Colombia's Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres, who has positioned her country as the first major fossil fuel producer to endorse a treaty, gains a platform. France's climate envoy Benoît Faraco, by presenting a national roadmap, elevates France as the template for other developed economies. Brazil's COP30 presidency gets a second chance to deliver on its fossil fuel roadmap pledge — now with technical inputs it can present at COP31 in Türkiye. The Netherlands, as co-host, cements its role as the bridge between European climate ambition and Global South transition politics.

The losers are equally identifiable. Saudi Arabia, which has "systematically fought against any further reference to the term 'transitioning away'" at every COP since Dubai, now faces a process that has moved the conversation forward without it (SWP Berlin). The United States under President Trump, which withdrew from the Paris Agreement on January 20, 2025, and sent no delegation to COP30, is not merely absent from Santa Marta — it is irrelevant to the emerging architecture (Al Jazeera). The EU faces a strategic dilemma identified by SWP Berlin: whether to escalate TAFF as the main contention within the UNFCCC — accepting the risk of future COP failures and naming the blockers — or to prioritise stabilising the Paris Agreement's core mechanisms and let the parallel track do the heavy lifting (SWP Berlin).

The 2027 Tuvalu conference is symbolically loaded. Pairing a high-income European nation with one of the countries most existentially threatened by sea-level rise is a deliberate framing device — and a pointed message to the absent major emitters. The venue itself is the argument. As Sciences Po's analysis notes, Tuvalu will inherit "not only the momentum from Santa Marta, but also its central dilemma: how to move from a shared recognition that fossil fuel dependence must be brought to an end, towards a fair, financed and enforceable pathway for ending it" (Sciences Po).

What to watch

• COP31 in Türkiye, November 2026: Brazil presents its TAFF roadmap drawing on Santa Marta findings. Whether Türkiye's presidency gives it formal space in the negotiations or relegates it to the margins will signal whether the parallel track is being absorbed back into the COP or is permanently diverging.
• EU strategic decision, by COP33 in India, 2028: The SWP Berlin analysis identifies this as the deadline for the EU to decide whether to escalate TAFF within the UNFCCC — accepting potential COP failures and naming blockers — or to let the parallel track carry the load.
• Second TAFF conference in Tuvalu, early 2027: The decisive test of whether the process moves from roadmaps to formal treaty negotiations. A critical mass of signatories toward the 50-state threshold would make a Fossil Fuel Treaty credible.
• ISDS coordination outcomes, 2026–2027: Watch for Santa Marta coalition members announcing bilateral treaty renegotiations or coordinated ISDS exits — the most concrete deliverable that does not require a new treaty.

Diplomat View

The Santa Marta process is the first credible attempt to solve the structural problem that has defined climate diplomacy for 30 years: the producers are in the room, and consensus gives them a veto. By excluding the veto-holders and focusing on implementation rather than target-setting, the coalition has created a space where the binding constraint is not politics but capacity — fiscal space, technical expertise, and political will.

The forecast hinges on Tuvalu. If the second conference produces a critical mass of states willing to open formal negotiations on a binding fossil fuel instrument — approaching the 50-state threshold that legal scholars identify as the credibility threshold — the parallel track will have proven that climate diplomacy can move at two speeds. If it produces only another report and another workstream, the Santa Marta process will have demonstrated the limits of coalition-based governance: it can plan, but it cannot bind.

The conditions for revision are specific. If China signals willingness to join or observe the Tuvalu conference, the coalition's ceiling rises dramatically. If Saudi Arabia or the US moves to actively disrupt the process through bilateral pressure on participants — rather than merely ignoring it — that would be the strongest signal that Santa Marta is being taken seriously as a threat to the status quo. And if the Brazilian TAFF roadmap presented at COP31 in Türkiye is substantively incorporated into formal negotiations rather than relegated to a side event, the parallel track will have achieved its design purpose: not to replace the COP, but to force it to move.